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Seven Peas in the Pod 
The Little Man With One Shoe 























































































































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Copyright, 1921, 

By Little, Brown, and Company. 
All rights reserved 

Published, October, 1921 



OCT 21 '21 


Printed in the United States of America 



•§)CL A624874 





Page 

THE LITTLE MAN WITH ONE SHOE .... 3 


THE FIRST NAIL 

The Pleasant Pixie-Man (A Song).16 

THE MASTER OF MAGIC .19 

THE SECOND NAIL 

I Speak of Her (A Song) ..52 

APPLES OF GLORY.55 

THE THIRD NAIL 

King Dad (A Song).90 

WHAT AILED THE KING.93 

THE FOURTH NAIL 

The Song of the Silver Faggot (A Song).122 

EVERYTHING FOR NOTHING.125 

THE FIFTH NAIL 

In Ispahan (A Song).152 

THE AMIABLE ADVENTURES OF MINKIN 
MOUSE.155 


THE SIXTH NAIL 


The Gentling of the Giants (A Song).188 

THE THREE POWERS.191 


1 





























“ Without more ado he lifted the pan of milk ” . Frontispiece 

Page 

“ There was the Princess running after him ”.39 


“ The little sprout shot up into a green tree ”.77 

‘“I’m the scullion,’ says she civil enough ”.105 

‘“ You shall hear,’ says the lass ” .141 


“ And the yellow-haired lass waited upon them ” . . . . 215 














\ 








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THE LITTLE MAN WITH ONE 

SHOE 


HERE be many things 
now that never used to 
be, and there used to 
be many things that 
are not now any more; 
and one of them was the shoe-maker’s 
shop at the end of our street, down 
there where the houses come together 
so close that you think you will never 
get the doors open at all, and you have 
a fear in you that the people inside 
have never come out, and so they may 
not know the language you speak to 
them. But on our street, the nearer 
you got, the more the houses stepped 
apart and smiled at you, and at the 









4 THE LITTLE MAN WITH ONE SHOE 


very end, after you passed by the bake* 
shop where they had hot cross buns in 
the window on Good Friday, and the 
toy-shop where all the animals marched 
to the tunes in their stomachs, you 
came to a door with a shoe hanging 
over it in the street. That was the 
shoemaker’s shop, which was the 
darkest place this side of midnight, 
and so full of leathery smells — ah, 
well, what with the dark and the 
leather all at once, you thought first of 
Tom Thumb’s famous adventure and 
wondered if you too had fallen asleep 
on a truss of hay, and what was the 
name of the cow that had swallowed 
you. 

Well, one day I took my way to the 
shoemaker, with a pair of shoes that 
had long needed repair. He set them 


THE-LITTLE MAN WITH ONE SHOE 5 

on his leathered knees, and pushed 
his glasses up on his forehead, and 
says he, “Well, it’s a fine way you 
have of letting good shoes go to wrack 
and ruin ! But I will say this for you,” 
says he, “and without looking twice; 
you have worn them out in no ordi¬ 
nary fashion.” 

“You are right there,” said I; “for 
it was in those shoes I used to go a- 
romancing these many years ago, and 
I should like to do the same again if 
you will mend them.” He handed 
them back to me as if one was hot 
coals and the other was cold icicles, 
and lie could not make up his mind 
which to drop first. 

“.You would never go a-romancing 
in these shoes again, with soles of the 
leather that you see here,” says he; 


6 THE LITTLE MAN WITH ONE SHOE 

“ you must have leather that will resist 
both cobblestones and dew, and still 
make your feet dance to the music of 
the grass-blades and the daisies. You 
will have to go to the Leprechaun,” 
says he; “to the fairy shoemaker and 
the master of us craftsman all, who 
lives in the green hills of Ireland.” 

“The Leprechaun! Dear man,” 
says I, “ I cannot be crossing the wide 
water to have my shoes mended. I 
must do my romancing close at home 
or not at all.” 

“You are a sensible mind, after all,” 
says he; “ it is few who have the idea 
that romance is anywhere in the neigh¬ 
borhood whatever. Now if you are 
really wise, you will hunt out the little 
man with one shoe,” says he, “for he 
is the Leprechaun’s seventh son’s sev- 


THE LITTLE MAN WITH ONE SHOE 7 

enth son, and a great mender of shoes. 
I warn you he is slow, for he pegs in 
each nail with a tale or a story, and for 
pay he demands that you shall tell 
him a tale or sing him a song in re¬ 
turn. That is why he wears but one 
shoe of his own, for as soon as he has 
finished the pegging of one, the sole 
of the other is worn to a thread with 
his search for more romances. Go on 
now,” says he, “ and tell him I sent 
you; I have got to be working like an 
ant in midsummer, over the shoes of 
the men in this place.” 

Well, I cannot tell you in what parts 
I went and how far I went to get those 
shoes mended, for it is likely you 
would not believe me, and my breath 
would be expended for nothing. But 
this you must know: that at the end 


8 THE LITTLE MAN WITH ONE SHOE 


of three years I knew all the dark 
streets, and all the bright ones too, of 
all the towns in my country, and I had 
walked in lanes and on highways, and 
all to no end. I remember with 
blushes the many men I have stopped, 
inquiring why they wore but one shoe, 
for with all the answers I had, there 
was not one in the search for romance. 
This one had the gout in one foot, and 
left his shoe at home; and that one 
was wearing the one shoe he had 
found in his way and looking for the 
mate to it; and another was vainly 
trying to soften new shoes which were 
too small and wearing them one at a 
time to have peace and comfort on 
one side of himself at the least. 

And so at last I came back to our 
street, and I walked the length of it 


THE LITTLE MAN WITH ONE SHOE 9 


down to the place where the houses 
step apart and smile; this I knew they 
were doing, though I could not see it, 
for it was the dark brown twilight of 
a Christmas Eve when I came home. 
There was a light in the window of 
the shoemaker’s shop, and I thought 
to myself that I would look in first to 
see what he was doing so late of a holi¬ 
day evening. This was the thing I 
saw first, and it came to my mind that 
I had seen it often enough before too, 
but that I had not looked at it prop¬ 
erly,— the shoemaker was sitting with 
\ 

a foot tucked under him! I ran to the 

door and held my ear to the crack of 
it, and sure enough he was pegging a 
shoe, and I could hear his voice going 
up and down in the cadences of a tale. 

I opened the door and I held up my 


10 THE LITTLE MAN WITH ONE SHOE 

shoes again. “ Oh, Little Man with 
One Shoe,” said I, “here am I at the 
end of my search. Seventh son of the 
Leprechaun’s seventh son, why did 
you deceive me before?” He did not 
so much as wink, but set aside the 
shoe of his own that he was working 
on, and set his bare foot on the floor. 

“I deceive you!” says he; “I told 
you what to look for; it was your own 
affair that you had never used your eyes. 
I told you that the leather you see here 
would never mend the shoes for you, 
and that was as true as death; you 
should have considered that one does 
not keep fairy leather lying about in 
broad daylight. It is just as well to take 
care of one’s best, as the rabbits said 
when they first cut off their long tails 
and locked them up for safe keeping. 


THE LITTLE MAN WITH ONE SHOE 11 

“ I have been sitting on one foot or 
the other for these many years, mend¬ 
ing my own shoes as I had the time. 
Did you never notice that I even have 
but one shoe hanging at my door? 
That is the sign of the Leprechaun’s 
men, and I think you never con¬ 
sidered it. 

“ There is this to be said for you, 
however,” says he, “that you came 
home to find the little man in your 
own street. There is one of my ilk 
in every street of Christendom, and of 
Maumetry too for that matter, with 
the door open for those that live there, 
if they will but use their eyes. Come 
now, I must mend your shoes, since 
you have found me out. And have 
you six tales to tell me? For I re¬ 
member that these shoes of yours re- 


12 THE LITTLE MAN WITH ONE SHOE 

quire six pegs, and I have had them 
ready all the time.” 

“Tut! it is you that tells the tales,” 
said I; “ but I have no objection to 
capping the stories you peg into my 
shoes with songs of curious and simple 
pattern.” 

So we sat down, and the little man 
laid aside his own shoe, on which he 
had been at work. Out of one pocket 
he took the fairy leather, and out of 
the other the fairy nails; and as he 
worked, he told me What Ailed the 
King, and how sometimes Everything 
goes for Nothing and still comes home 
prosperous; of the Master of Magic 
moreover, and the Apples of Glory, 
the Amiable Adventures of Minkin 
Mouse, and the Three Powers that a 
King’s son had. 


THE LITTLE MAN WITH ONE SHOE 13 

And when he finished the shoes, I 
put them on, and straightway knew 
the road to Ispahan and Carcassonne 
and Eildon Hills and Bethlehem, and 
other happy places. Then I put my 
face outside, and there it was Christ¬ 
mas morning, and the world was white 
with snow. 

It happens that the shoemaker’s 
shop is gone now, and himself too, 
but I have met him in other places, as 
I hope you may; and I have no doubt 
that if you walk to the end of your 
street, down there where the houses 
come together, and knock at the door 
where a single shoe is hanging, you 
will hear—if you but show your shoes 
worn thin in the search of romances— 
stories like these he told to me, or 
possibly much better. 




\ 



























16 


THE MASTER OF MAGIC 


The Pleasant Pixie—Man 




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THE MASTER OF MAGIC 17 

He gave me a gold ring with a mighty green stone. 
And a taffety gown that was bright in the sun; 
And his looks were so friendly, and his hair was 
so black 

That I looked on his face and I could not turn 
back. 


I passed by my true love as if he were dead, 

And “ Fare you well, Johnnie,” was all that I said. 
For the Pixie was pleasant, and his hair was so black 
That even for Johnnie I could not turn back. 


And then at the crossroads we met an old man 

Crying “ God save you, maiden, now flee while 
you can ! ” 

I turned my head sideways to answer his clack — 

And the Pixie-man vanished and never came back. 

And that ring was a grass blade all withered and 
brown. 

And the gown was a cobweb with threads hanging 
down ; 

But his looks were so pleasant, and his hair was 
so black 

That I wish I had followed, and never turned 
back! 





THE MASTER OF MAGIC 


N the days when any 
man with a stewpan 
to his name could be 
cooking wizardry, and 
every pebble in one’s 
back yard might turn out to be 
the philosopher’s stone, there lived a 
Princess so obstinate and vain that 
she was enamored of wisdom and 
nothing else. As far as looks were 
concerned, she was as fine a lassie 
as one could see in three good 
harvest years,—brown and white and 
ruddy, and straight as the rushes 
in the river; but of all that few 
people took any comfort, since she 
talked in conundrums, and ruled by 
















20 


THE MASTER OF MAGIC 


riddles, and had singular powers of 
magic. 

When one came to visit her and 
made a civil bow, her answer would 
be, “ Bad for thieves and good for 
farmers.” That was her fashion of 
saying, “A fair good morrow to you” ; 
and if she was well inclined, and not 
too anxious to go back to her books 
and her diagrams, she might add to 
that, “ Ill luck to your surgeon and 
your sexton.” And you would see, 
when you were trudging on your way 
home, that she was hoping you were 
in good health. When the Prime 
Minister came late to the meeting of 
the Privy Council, and asked her 
what had gone on, she put her finger 
in the pages of her volume to keep 
the place, and says she, “ The stew 


THE MASTER OF MAGIC 21 

was on the fire, and the pot boiled 
over.” And two weeks later, with 
the help of wise men and learned 
doctors, he would find that the mat¬ 
ter of internal revenue had been the 
subject of a hot debate, and that the 
King had lost his temper. At dinner 
time the waiting men shook in their 
places, for once she asked for that 
on which no man could dine, but 
without which no man could dine 
well. The Lord Chamberlain and 
the seneschal and the chief steward 
and two butlers, with unnumbered 
cooks, waiting maids and scullions, 
sat with pale faces and guessed at 
the riddle; and at length the Lord 
Chamberlain and the seneschal were 
sent as a deputation to say that they 
gave it up. 


22 


THE MASTER OF MAGIC 


“ Salt, then 1 ” says the Princess, 
calmly enough; but when it was 
brought, she opened a great book 
and looked at them out of her green 
eyes. “What geese you are! ” says 
she, and from that moment, for three 
weeks and nine hours, those two un- 
happy men were persuaded that geese 
they were, and nothing could alter 
them from this wicked surmise. 

Well, so things went on in the 
palace until the King complained, for 
he had great difficulty in being served 
at all, and all the great books of learn¬ 
ing were so thumbed and tattered, from 
the use of them in puzzling over the 
Princess’s orders, that the King had 
nothing to make his chair high enough 
at the table, and no thick book of 
wisdom to keep his feet off the floors 


THE MASTER OF MAGIC 


23 


in winter, when the draughts were 
cold. He consulted the sages and 
doctors and councillors of skill, but 
none of them dared think of a measure 
to render the Princess less masterful 
with her magic. At last there was 
nothing for it but to talk to the Prin¬ 
cess herself; and for the King that 
was not so much of an adventure as 
it was for other people, since he was 
more or less skilled in the interpre¬ 
tation of her riddles. So off he trotted 
to the high tower where the Princess 
sat with her books, and puffed and 
blew till he got himself to the top of 
the stair, and knocked. 

“ Well ? ” says the Princess. That 
is a simple saying, but with her it was 
not simple at all, for by it she meant 
all manner of things, and the chief of 


24 THE MASTER OF MAGIC 

them was that it' was far from well 

> 

that any one should batter* at her door 
when she was deep in the mysteries 
of learning. The King knew this as 
well as the next, if not better, and so to 
soothe her he thought, and scratched 
his head over it, and says he: 

“ It is he who came before you and 
who will go before you.” 

“Ah,” says the Princess, opening 
the door with quite a happy look, 
“my father, who was born before me 
and will die before me. A very good 
riddle.” 

“See now,” says the King, mighty 
careful, “I have come to get your 
worshipful advice on a subject of im¬ 
portance.” 

“What is that? ” says the Princess, 
direct as you please (by which you 


THE MASTER OF MAGIC 25 

can see that even among the wise a 
bit of flattery has its effect, as the fox 
knew well enough in that little matter 
of the crow and the cheese-rind). 

“Well,” says the King, “it is this 
business of study and magic,” says he. 
“ I can scarce get hot water for shav¬ 
ing in the morning, because all the 
waiting men are sitting on the floor 
with great books spread on their 
knees, finding the answers to your 
riddles. And I must think too,” says 
the King, “of giving a half of my 
kingdom to some deserving young 
man, as all Kings are expected to do 
at my time of life ; in short,” says he, 
“to cut off the peeling and get down 
to the fruit, what do you say to a veil 
and a wedding ring?” 

“ Waste no energy in considering 


26 


THE MASTER OF MAGIC 


that,” says the Princess, stirring a 
beaker of boiling dragon-scales and 
poking the fire under it; “in a very 
short time I am going off to that 
which goes up and down and yet 
stands still, and I have every intention 
of making an alliance with the people 
that neither live nor die, since it is 
only with them that one finds the 
higher degrees of magic.” 

“I see,” says the King; “you are 
going to live in the hills and marry a 
pixie-man. It is very good of you to 
tell me so candidly about it,” says the 
King. “ ’T is a quaint idea,” says he, 
and he takes himself off to the Prime 
Minister and the three secretaries of 
state. 

' He told them everything from be¬ 
ginning to end, and bade them send 


THE MASTER OF MAGIC 27 

out invitations to all the young men 
of the countries round about who 
might be cherishing ambitions to rule 
half a kingdom, with the hopes of 
more at no distant date; for the King 
had no mind for a pixie son-in-law, 
and pixie grandchildren with little 
tufted ears and whiskers like a kitten’s, 
making magic in all the towers and 
cellars and ruling over the good stupid 
burghers in his stead. 

Well, before the messengers had 
had time to go far with their packs 
of letters on the subject, the Princess 
got wind of it, and to say that she was 
angry is so feeble a sentence that I 
wonder the letters stand upright in 
their places as I put them down. 
Two councillors became convinced 
that they were sheep that day; the 


28 THE MASTER OF MAGIC 

waiting maid to the Princess was 
seized with a great fear of cats, and 
ran about the halls looking for a 
mouse-hole to creep into, whenever 
she came near one ; the Prime Minis¬ 
ter was deprived of his speech for a 
week, and so on throughout the house¬ 
hold, until everybody scurried for shel¬ 
ter whenever the Princess appeared, 
with or without her books, for she 
was growing so powerful that she had 
passed the fifth degree of magic, and 
read her spells from the page no more. 
In the midst of destruction she came 
to the King, forgetting her riddles 
once more in the dismay of the mo¬ 
ment (for as the wise man said, you 
cannot put words on a tongue too hot 
to hold them). 

“What is this?” says she. “Why 


THE MASTER OF MAGIC 29 

are you filling the house with men 
that can only guide horses and occupy 
armor? Let you know this,” says 
she, with her green eyes blazing; “I 
will have a master of magic or none 
at all,—a man that shall know all that 
I know and be able to pass me far; 
and I have taken good care that it 
shall be nowise but so.” And out she 
went, and away she went, and behold 
you, she disappeared like yesterday, or 
indeed the day before that, leaving no 
trace behind her but runes on her 
tower door, which translated, read 
thus: 

I live in a transparent castle y & 

I am dressed in white smock and green mantle . 

The King was in a mighty flutter of 
spirits, for what was he to say to the 
young men who would presently be 


30 


THE MASTER OF MAGIC 


coming in? He might say that he 
had changed his mind since he had 
sent out the messages, or he might 
say that the Princess was already be¬ 
trothed ; as far as mending the real 
matter went, there was not much dif¬ 
ference between the two, and neither 
one did him much good, as the man 
said about his glass eyes. So he made 
up his mind that he would make a 
proclamation of the Princess’s curious 
behavior, and offer her hand and the 
kingdom to the wise man who should 
find her. 

Well, presently the suitors came rid¬ 
ing in,—tall ones, short ones, mighty 
ones and meagre ones, ready to enter 
tournaments and undertake quests and 
perform all sorts of prodigies for the 
sake of adventure and the kingdom’s 


THE MASTER OF MAGIC 31 

half. But of all these we need scarce 
take account, except for the three chief 
heroes, who were known far and wide 
for their feats of arms. The first was 
Boriendel, who had sailed the north¬ 
ern seas and clung to many a drifting 
spar; the second was Melinax, who 
had gone on crusades among the des¬ 
erts of the south; and the third was 
Sirinim, who had encountered giants 
and dragons on the mountain tops 
where the fog lies thick and cold. Of 
these the King had great hopes, be¬ 
cause they were the sons of his neigh¬ 
bors, and he had heard good things of 
their prowess heretofore. 

They sat in counsel together, con¬ 
sidering the runes of the Princess’s 
message, and as they sat, the garden¬ 
er’s boy waited upon them, since he 


32 


THE MASTER OF MAGIC 


was the only waiting man left with his 
wits from the day of the Princess’s de¬ 
parture. He smiled easily, the garden¬ 
er’s boy, for he was a good-natured lad. 

“Now then,” says Boriendel, “the 
Princess saith, ‘ in a transparent castle.’ 
That is a kenning for the air, methinks; 
in all likelihood she dwelleth on a 
windy heath among the northern 
moors.” 

“ By your leave,” says Melinax, 
“ though I scout not the reading of 
the riddle’s self, meseemeth the air to 
be that dazzling clearness of the desert 
days.” 

“To my mind,” says Sirinim, “’tis 
neither one nor the other, but a palace 
of ice on the side of some glassy prec¬ 
ipice. Credit my experience and let 
us seek her there.” 


THE MASTER OF MAGIC 33 

I 

Well, they talked back and forth, 
but in the end they were not beyond 
the point where they had started; and 
so, like princely gentlemen, they gave 
each other fair good days and parted, 
each to seek the Princess after his own 
fashion. Boriendel went to the seas of 
the North, Melinax went to the sands 
of the South, and Sirinim climbed the 
mountains, as was his wont. 

But after they had gone, the gar¬ 
dener’s boy brushed away the crumbs, 
and wiped the cups, and stood the 
tray on edge against the wall. And 
all the time he thought, and as he 
thought he smiled. Up comes the 
King to him, with his crown over one 
eye from the excitement of the visiting. 

“I suppose,” says he, “that you will 
be wanting to go off on the quest with 


34 


THE MASTER OF MAGIC 


the rest of them? For I never read a 
tale yet,” says the King, “ in which 
the potboys and the princes did not 
go off together, when it was a mat¬ 
ter of a lady.” 



pleased that your Majesty should con¬ 
sider my feelings; but I am all for 
thinking on the matter for a bit, and as 
my brains are in one place all the time. 


















































THE MASTER OF MAGIC 35 

I might as well stay where they are,” 
says he. “ Besides, there are suitors 
still coming, and no man to be serving 
them but me.” 

So he ran about all day waiting on 
the noblemen, and about sun-down he 
went out into the garden with the 
great snipping shears, as he had been 
used to do, and trimed the rose trees 
in the Princess’s garden, and the ivy 
on the Princess’s tower. He thought 
about the transparent castle, but he 
thought too of the Princess in green 
and white, remembering her green 
eyes, and it made his heart beat so that 
it was like to make his jacket thin on 
the left side of him. 

By and by he went down to the end 
of the garden where there was a pond 
of water, and there was a new white 


36 


THE MASTER OF MAGIC 


pond lily floating upon it. The lad 
sat down by the water’s edge, and 
looked at the lily, and thought, until 
the moon went down and the sun 



came up, and it was a new day. And 
all of a sudden he laughed, and rose 
and went away to the castle. 

All day long the palace hummed 










THE MASTER OF MAGIC 37 

with suitors, and the courtyard rang 
under the horses’ hoofs; the garden¬ 
er’s boy was diligent in the service of 
the gentlemen and knights at arms, 
going off to the ends of the earth in 
search of the flighty Princess. But at 
sun-down his duty was done, and he 
was free to do as he chose. He went 
down to the garden and sat beside the 
pond where the water lily was, think¬ 
ing all the time of the Princess in 
green and white, and remembering her 
green eyes. When the sun came up 
on the new day again, the water lily 
stirred among its dark leaves, and the 
white petals opened to show the golden 
heart of it. And again the lad laughed 
and went away" to his serving. 

That day he had less to do in the 
court, since the suitors were almost 


38 THE MASTER OF MAGIC 

all gone by this time. At noonday 
he saw the last of them passing out 
through the great gates, and without 
more words to anybody, he went 
straight down to the garden’s end, and 
sat down beside the pond, with his 
arms around his knees. He sat and 
stared at the pond lily, and thought of 
the Princess in green and white, until 
the sun began to drop, and then, as he 
had done on the two days before, he 
laughed and turned away. 

He set his face towards the castle 
towers, but as he went, he heard a 
quick patter of feet behind him, and 
when he turned about,—lo! there 
was the Princess, running after him! 
She came up to him, breathing fast as 
if the air were icy cold, and her eyes 
were narrow as a snake’s. She wasted 


















































40 


THE MASTER OF MAGIC 


no time on riddles and runes, but 
spoke as flat as a bargain in shillings 
and pence: 

“Why do you laugh at me?” says 
she. Now the lad was not one of 
those to open his mind and let 
you take your choice of everything 
in it. 

“Come now,” says he, “you go 
too fast, as the cat said to the sparrow 
that flew away from him. How could 
I be laughing at you, and you away all 
these days?” 

“ I have not been away,” says the 
Princess, “ as you know very well, 
scoffer I I have been in the transpar¬ 
ent castle of the pond waters, in the 
white smock and green mantle of a 
pond lily. It is a transformation per¬ 
formed after seven nights of study and 


THE MASTER OF MAGIC 41 

seven days of magic, and here you 
stand and laugh at me! ” 

“ That is sure enough good cause for 
laughter,” says the lad, as cool as cus¬ 
tard, “ that you should spend long years 
of study only for that, — to tell a silly 
riddle and sit for days with your feet in 
cold water 1 You will hold me excused 
that I cannot credit your saying.” 

“Vain man,” says the Princess, “you 
shall believe me” (for she had no mind 
to have her arts pooh-poohed by any¬ 
one, high or low). “See now,” says 
she, “look closely!” And she lifted a 
veil that she had in her hand, and 
wrapped it around her face. Tut! In 
less time than it takes to close your 
eyes and open them, there was no sign 
of the Princess about, and only a green 
and white water lily lying on the grass. 


I 


42 THE MASTER OF MAGIC 

And then, in the turn of a hand, there 
she was again, with the veil fluttering 
from her fingers. 

“And so you manage all this mighty 
pother with that bit of a rag,” says the 
lad. 

“ I do,” says the Princess, very 
proud of her powers. “ It is white 
magic of the third degree, and more 
than is known to any one else in this 
land,” says she. 

With that the gardener’s lad began 
to laugh; he laughed until the castle 
walls answered him with laughter, 
and all the roses nodded, and the King 
and all the court came marching down 
to the end of the garden to see what 
madness had taken root there. For 
up to this time there had been no 
such laughing in that house. 


THE MASTER OF MAGIC 43 

The Princess turned to the King, as 
pitiful as an ordinary lassie with a 
broken pitcher. “ Father,” says she, 
“ this is the gardener’s lad, who has 
somehow found out my riddle, and 
yet he treats it with mirth and folly. 
It is the best of my arts,” says she; “I 
do but wind this veil about my face, 
and there is no trace of me to be seen, 
but only a white water lily with green 
leaves, that should be living in the 
transparent waters of the pond. Look 
now,” says she, and she made to take 
up the veil. But it was much shorter 
than before, and she turned it this way 
and that to find the reason of it. 

The King looked at the gardener’s 
boy with a twinkle struggling into his 
eyes, and as the two laughed again, 
the veil grew shorter still. Presently 


44 


THE MASTER OF MAGIC 


the Lord Chamberlain smiled behind 
his hand, the seneschal followed after, 
and as the whole court from Prime 
Minister to scullion held their sides 
and roared at the thought of the Prin¬ 
cess using her magic to so little pur¬ 
pose, the veil grew less and less; and 
by the time they wiped their merry 
eyes and saw the last gust of their 
laughter, the veil dwindled to nothing 
in the Princess’s hands, and disap¬ 
peared like smoke. 

“ See now,” says the gardener’s lad, 
“ the Princess was jesting, after all.” 

“ I do not know how to jest,” says 
the Princess. 

“Ah, that is where I am wiser than 
you,” says the lad. “ I do. And 
it is a thing that you should have 
known before this,” says he; “ that 


THE MASTER OF MAGIC 45 

there is no magic, white or black, 
which cannot be melted by laughter. 
Come to me, my dear,” says the lad, 
“ and learn to jest and be merry, for 
after all, that is the wisest art in the 
world.” 

“ It is possible you may be right,” 
says the Princess, for she was a scholar, 
and the scent of a new learning was 
fresh life in her nostrils. “ But I think 
you should explain with diagrams and 
the use of mathematical figures just 
what steps in calculation you per¬ 
formed in order to discern my pres¬ 
ence in the pond,” says she. 

“As to that,” says the gardener’s 
lad, without a glimmer of a smile, "I 
managed the matter through my know¬ 
ledge of the abstruse science closely 
connected with the art of laughter, 


46 


THE MASTER OF MAGIC 


which is called Common Sense. For 
where the others went out to India 
and the Kaffir country and searched 
the highlands of Thibet, I stayed at 
home and looked in the garden which 
you used to care for, when you had 
time from your books. It is a matter 
of common report,” says the lad, “ that 
women always wish to see the outcome 
of any to-do they have roused up, and 
I thought you would be near the 
house, after all.” 

The Princess cast down her eyes 
for the first time in her life, and her 
cheeks were red as sunset. “You 
have an excellent grasp of these strange 
sciences of yours,” says she, meek 
enough; “you know more than I 
know, and you can pass me far. I 
pray you, Father, sign the deed of gift 


THE MASTER OF MAGIC 


47 


for the kingdom’s half, and buy me a 
wedding gown; for I can waste no 
more time on arts that pass so easily 
away.” And there she spoke the tru¬ 
est wisdom that ever she had in all 
her days. 

And so the wedding was celebrated 
in the merriest fashion imaginable, 
and many of the suitors came back for 
the feasting. But there was no word of 
Boriendel or Melinax or Sirinim, and 
that was just as well for the Princess’s 
feelings. For Boriendel had forgotten 
about the transparent castle, and he 
had become a fur merchant in the 
cold seas of the North; and Melinax 
had ceased to think about the Prin¬ 
cess, and he was leading a last crusade 
in the deserts of the South; and as for 
Sirinim,—he had found an ice castle, 


48 


THE MASTER OF MAGIC 


with a pretty lass inside of it, and 
what though she was the wrong one? 
She suited him well enough. That is 
the way of these adventuring men. 
































50 


APPLES OF GLORY 


I Speak of Her 



I said My love is all a pearl Carved 




out for my de - light; I said she is 



an 



sight. I said My heart’s a 


















































































APPLES OF GLORY 


51 



ha - nd. How shall I show her 



beau - ty forth, That men may un - der-stand ? 


I said She is a melody 

That makes the angels gay; 

I said She is more fragrant spice 
Than any in Cathay; 

I said She is an ivory throne, 

A silver willow-tree, — 

Oh, stumbling tongue, attempt no praise 
Save this : that She is She. 






























APPLES OF GLORY 


NCE upon a time that 
never happened, in a 
country that never 
was, there lived a lad 
and his mother in a 
bit of a house scarcely bigger than a 
wooden churn. They had nothing to 
boast of more than wits and good 
looks; so when the lad was twenty 
years old, his mother cut his hair by the 
rim of the porridge bowl and patched 
the holes in the elbows of his coat. 

“Now then,” says she, “do you be 
going out and making the fortunes of 
both of us; for after all, the best way 
to squeeze the wine out of luck is to 
dance on it with ready feet.” 

So off the lad set, whistling like the 



/ 














54 


APPLES OF GLORY 


west wind, but before he had laid foot 
on the highway, out came his mother 
waving her apron as if the flies had 
got at the batter pudding. 



“Well, and what is it now?” says 
the lad, being a bit impatient at wast¬ 
ing the precious time in anything but 
fortune-seeking. 

“ Do you be taking these,” says his 
mother, holding out her left hand. 




































APPLES OF GLORY 


55 


There were three dried apple pips 
lying in it, — no more, no less. 

“And what should I be doing with 
shrivelled apple pips?” says the lad, 
very scornful. 

“Come now,” says his mother, 
“ don’t be turning up your nose at 
these bits of seeds; it is not always 
the big things that make a noise in the 
world, as the man said when he tried 
to get a black gnat out of his eye. 
Your father left these behind him, and 
if you do as he said there will cer¬ 
tainly be more good eggs than bad in 
the basket you bring home. Only 
remember this: you’ll not plant any 
at all until you ’re in desperate straits; 
and you’ll not be snatching up the 
trees that grow from the pips until the 
leaves be falling.” 


56 


APPLES OF GLORY 


“I will not,” says the lad; and he 
put the three apple seeds into a nap¬ 
kin and tucked it into his jacket. 
Well, he struck out with a swing to 
his legs, and before long he came to 
the town where the great King lived. 

First he went to the tavern, where 
the beer and the wine were flowing 
faster than the fountain in the market 
place, on a holiday. There were 
lively lads there too, each one with his 
thumbs in his jerkin pockets, and a 
tongue wagging faster than the iron 
spoon when cook stirs the pudding. 
This one was a brave soldier that had 
seen foreign parts; and this one was 
a sailor that had held the wheel across 
the seven seas; and this was a juggler 
that had shown his art before the 
King; and this was a peddler who 


APPLES OF GLORY 


57 


had kissed the Lord Mayor’s wife 

0 

only yesterday; and each one thought 
himself as great as the wine he had 
inside his jacket told him he was. 

For a long time the lad sat in the 
corner and marvelled at the company 
he had had the luck to fall in with; 
and he almost wept for pride when 
one of the rascals struck him a blow 
across the shoulders and made him 
drink with them. Well, it was not 
long till his tongue was itching to 
hold its own with the rest of them; 
but not a thing did he have to boast 
of but three dried apple pips! How¬ 
ever, a short song is better than none, 
as the dumb beggar said, and so the 
lad was soon at it with the best of 
them; he was a traveler that had three 
magic seeds in his pocket. Nothing 


58 


APPLES OF GLORY 


must do but he must bring them out; 
and the others roared until the rafters 
shook. 

“ Ho! a bit of a remembrance from 
a neighbor lass!” says one. 

“No, no! ’Tis a scrap of provision 
to keep his teeth from rusting until 
the morrow,” says another. 

“They are goblin diamonds,” says 
a third, and takes off his bonnet with 
a mock of gravity. And so it went 
from one thing to another, until the 
lad had salt in his eyes and a lump in 
his throat. 

“ A black Sunday fall to all of you! ” 
he shouted. “You shall see whether 
it’s the truth I’m telling!” So out 
he ran to the courtyard, and scratched a 
hole with his thumb-nail, and dropped 
one of the seeds in it. 


APPLES OF GLORY 


59 


Bless you! You should have seen 
the eyes of all of them stand out when 
the lad covered it over! In less time 
than it takes to puff out a candle, 
there sprang up a bit of an apple tree 
a foot high, with green leaves and 
rosy apples; but before they could 
touch it, the apples fell and rolled 
away, the leaves vanished like smoke, 
and the trunk withered up into a 
shrivelled stalk. The rogues took to 
their heels, screaming “Witchcraft! 
Deviltry I ” and left the lad warming 
the courtyard with his knees in front 
of the wasted apple seed. 

But all this time there was a tall 
man in black, with silver in his bon¬ 
net, that had an eye on everything 
that had passed from the other side of 
the way. 


60 


APPLES OF GLORY 


“That is an excellent fine hand you 
have there,” says he; “you had best 
come with me, for the King is well 
pleased with new and curious magic.” 

“ It’s no magician I am at all,” says 
the lad, in a green fear. 

“Tush!” says the man in black. 
“ The fox swore that he was a squirrel 
when they found him in the henhouse, 
too. Let me tell you that I have been 
making magic white and black for 
more years than you are old, and I 
have never seen the like of what you 
have done to-day. I am Chief Lord 
of the castle Magicians; now will you 
come in peace, or—” 

But the lad was not for waiting to 
find out what the rest of the words 
were: he went after the King’s magi¬ 
cian like a thread after the needle, and 


APPLES OF GLORY 


61 


they went up the hill to the castle very 
sociably together. 

When the King heard that a new 
and very powerful magician was await¬ 
ing his courtesy below stairs, he 
tucked his velvets around his waist 
and hurried down with his sceptre 
under his arm. Nothing would do 
but the lad must make magic on the 
spot; it availed him nothing that he 
begged and pleaded and wailed and 
wept. 

“You are an obstinate fellow,” says 
the King; “I will give you three days 
to do magic for me, in the greatness 
of my mercy. At the end of that 
time you shall be executed according 
to law. Now let me take counsel to 
see what you shall do 1 ” And off 
went the King, as sunny-tempered as 


62 


APPLES OF GLORY 


a goose full of corn, while the lad 
was plumped into the donjon keep. 
There he sat for one day and two 
days, watching the clouds and the 
swallows and the other happy things 
that were not penned in the dark; 
and from time to time the King came 
by, and put his head in at the window, 
and said, “ Have you thought of any¬ 
thing yet? Neither have we!” 

On the third day the courtiers and 
magicians were gathered in a ring 
upstairs to decide what the lad should 
do in magic on his last day of grace, 
with the King fidgeting in the midst 
of them. But while they were argu¬ 
ing and quarreling and discussing the 
merits of the white and the black, 
and the degrees in them both, the 
King slipped off with his mantle over 


APPLES OF GLORY 


63 


his head, and went down to the donjon 
window. 

“Tsst! ” says he, “I’ve thought of 
something! The Prime Minister has 
said time and again that I must be 
married, and still he cannot produce 
a lass from anywhere that suits my 
fancy. I am easily satisfied, after all, 
as the hawk said when he ate the last 
of the dove’s family; I must have a 
lassie with the beauty of sunrise and 
the wisdom of sunset, and she must 
be as patient as life and as faithful as 
death. Now, do you make me one; 
I prefer nut-brown hair.” 

“What are you saying?” says the 
lad. “ I am no sculptuary, and if I 
were, I could make you no woman 
that could talk.” 

“ Stuff and nonsense,” says the 


64 


APPLES OF GLORY 


King. “You are a magician, and I 
know it perfectly well, because Midia- 
ran told me so, and he is the Chief 
Lord of the castle Magicians. Make 
me a wife just as you made magic for 
him; how did you manage that?” 

Well, I must tell you that the lad 
had forgotten all about the dried apple 
pips that had been the cause of all this 
worry, but he had no more hopes of 
them than the rose has memories of 
the snow that lay over it last winter. 
However, he reflected that he was 
certainly not disobeying the words of 
his father this time, for he was sure 
enough in desperate straits; and so he 
took out the second of the pips, and 
scratched a space in the prison floor, 
and laid the seed in it. 

Hei-ah! From the prison floor grew 


APPLES OF GLORY 


65 


up an apple tree as straight and round 
as a needle, with pretty branches like 
kind arms, and twigs like gentle fin¬ 
gers, and such ruddy apples and soft 
green leaves as made one’s heart turn 
to water merely at seeing it. 

“ Ahhh I ” says the King. “ Horror I 
You are playing a trick on me I” 
And he ran off, shrieking. The lad 
stood gazing at the tree, and the more 
he looked at it, the more his heart 
rose against letting the King lay a 
finger on it. He forgot that he had 
planted it to save his skin and bring 
the King a wife; and he forgot too 
that he had been told never to snatch 
up the tree before the leaves had 
fallen. He looked at the green leaves 
and the slender branches until his 
heart seemed to be no more inside of 


66 


APPLES OF GLORY 


him, but hanging among the apples of 
the magic tree, and he just set his 
arms around it and drew it up from 
the floor, root and all. 

TA-TAA-TAAA1 That was the 
King’s bugles outside the door; and 
there was the sound of many feet, and 
the rattle of bolts and locks. When 
the high door was pushed open, there 
was the King, with all his courtiers 
and followers and magicians and men 
of skill, and the turnkeys and guards 
of the prison, and the executioner 
with his axe, and halberdiers and lan¬ 
cers without number. They had the 
aspect of angry men and violent, but 
as they looked upon the lad and his 
armful, they stood still where they 
were, with their jaws hanging like so 
many necklaces. The lad regarded 


APPLES OF GLORY 


67 


them in dismay, but he had no 
thought to look where they were look¬ 
ing, and he took no heed of the apple 
tree until he felt it moving in his arm. 

There are few things the heart stops 
for, but one is death and the other is 
glory, either of deeds or of beauty; 
and in this instance the lad’s heart 
stopped with a jerk, and his eyes went 
wide, and his breath deserted him. 
For indeed he held no apple tree at 
all, but a white, slender maid as 
straight and round as a needle, with 
kind arms and gentle fingers. She 
had all the beauty of sunrise, and 
when you looked into her quiet eyes 
you knew that she had the wisdom of 
sunsets and the patience of life and 
the faithfulness of death. There was 
but one thing amiss, and that was that 


68 


APPLES OF GLORY 


in place of golden hair or black or 
brown, her head was covered with 
little green leaves that hung about her 
shoulders and covered her to the 
knee. 

“ What is your name,” says the lad, 
“and how did you come here?” 

“I have no name,” says the lass, 
gentle and sweet, “and I came be¬ 
cause you would have it so.” And 
that was the way the lad knew what 
he had done. He knelt down in front 
of her, and put his hands over her 
own, and bent his face upon them, 
and says he, “ I have brought you into 
hard things, and you see the first of 
them in a prison; but for all that, you 
are to be the King’s wife, and you 
will be my Queen.” 

Well, at that the King’s voice came 


APPLES OF GLORY 


69 


back to him with a shout. “ Certainly 
not,” says he. “ First you make me 
nothing but a silly apple tree, and 
then you present me with some lum 
mox from the villages that you have 
got in here by some hook or crook. 
Do you call that magic? No fairy 
princess should appear but in a puff 
of smoke or a blaze of light; and you 
cannot make me believe that any good 
comes of apple trees, as Dan Adam 
said in Eden town.” 

“ King or not,” says the lad, with 
his teeth together, “you shall not talk 
in that strain. I did evil in obeying 
your light wishes, but mighty good 
has come of it in a maid so fit to be a 
queen as this one, and you shall give 
her the place you offered before she 

99 


came. 


70 


APPLES OF GLORY 


“Shan’t,” says the King. “I have 
my position to consider. Who ever 
heard of a queen with green leaves on 
her head instead of hair? The crown 
is not made that would fit such a one. 
You may have done magic, and there¬ 
fore you may depart alive, in the great¬ 
ness of my mercy; but you must be 
without my boundaries within three 
days, or you both die for trifling with 
the kingly dignity.” 

And so he gathered his robe around 
him, and raised his sceptre, and 
marched away with all his men-at-arms 
trailing after him; and years afterward 
he married an Amazon, whose head 
fitted the crown so well that she wore 
not only her own but his too, and the 
kingly dignity was no more talked of 
in that land. 


APPLES OF GLORY 


71 


But as for the lad and the maid with 
the leafy hair, they went away hand 
in hand, well content to be with each 
other and away from court and king. 
By the end of three days they were 
many leagues from the King’s boun¬ 
daries, and traveling in the deep forests; 
and there she taught him the green 
language, so that he could understand 
the singing and the talk of the forest 
folk. By times they lay under the 
trees and heard the pines sing stories 
of the sea, for all pine trees are sailors 
born, and do nothing but talk of the 
days when they shall be the masts of 
lovely ships; and by times they sat 
with their feet in clear water, that was 
hurrying by to reach the river and the 
sea, and listened to the gossip of the 
rushes that grew along its banks. But 


72 


APPLES OF GLORY 


sometimes the lad, waking of a morn¬ 
ing, thought he was alone in the 
woods, with the rain coming through 
the leaves, and when he opened his 
eyes it would be her leafy hair about 
him, and her tears. 

“Ah, now, sweetheart,” says he, 
“you are homesick for the orchards 
where you were living before you 
came here.” 

“ Not that at all,” says she, with her 
smile like honey and roses, “for while 
my feet are on the earth I am with my 
mother and my home. But like all 
the folk of the trees, I have the wis¬ 
dom of sunsets, and I know that the 
heart of you is far from easy because 
you are thinking of a fortune still to 
be made, and I have a fear that I am 
keeping you from it.” Now to this 


APPLES OF GLORY 


73 


the lad had nothing to say, for the 
thing she had said was as true as four 
when it comes after two and two. 

So they went along the highways 
and entered the little towns; but here 

t • 

was no fortune to be made any more 
than in the forests. For in some 
places the green doors of the houses 
opened, and the children thumped out 
of them in their wooden shoes to pluck 
at the maid’s green hair; and in some 
the old folk with grim faces crossed 
themselves, because they had never 
seen the like, and would give them 
neither food nor shelter. Where there 
were taverns the light folk sought to 
keep her for her beauty; and where 
there were shops the greedy folk 
sought to sell her for a creature to be 
stared at; and where there were men 


74 


APPLES OF GLORY 


of law they called for a fire or a brand¬ 
ing iron to try her for a witch. And 
so at last the lad wrapped her up in 
his mantle and put her on his shoulder 
as if she were a bundle for the market, 
and so they fled away to the dark, 
kind places where lived her kinsfolk 
that were the trees. 

When they were in the heart of the 
wood, the lad set her down, and with¬ 
out further ado he scraped a clear 
space in the ground and reached into 
his pocket for the last apple seed. 

Now in all their traveling the maid 
with the green hair had been as patient 
as life and as faithful as death, with 
no objection to one thing or another; 
but this time she seized his hand, and 
says she, “What are you doing? 
There is your fortune yet to make, 


APPLES OF GLORY 


75 


and you are not yet in desperate 
straits; you would not be planting the 
last of the apple seeds to waste it!” 

“My dear,” says the lad, “I have 
lived several years in the last week or 
two, and I find that I am in desperate 
need of only one thing—your safety 
and your peace of mind. For me it 
is enough,” says he, “that your face is 
sunny and that there is a pleasant 
shadow in your hair; and yet I have 
left you to be a scorn and a byword in 
the little towns where men live. It is 
not wasting the last of the seeds surely, 
to spend it for your sake.” 

Well, the things his tongue uttered 
were the laws her heart followed, and 
so the two of them hung over the 
place where the seed was laid. In 
less time than I can measure for you, 


76 


APPLES OF GLORY 


the earth crackled and broke, and the 
little sprout shot up into a fair green 
tree. The fruit withered, and the 
leaves fell, and presently there was 
nothing there at all but a heap of dry 
leaves, that seemed to be covering 
something else. The lad waited and 
waited, but nothing happened further, 
and so he brushed away the leaves 
and found a sharp knife with a wooden 
handle. 

There was a chill at his heart when 
he found no more than that, but it 
was nothing to the cold that struck 
into him when he read the runes the 
knife had on the sides of it. He flung 
it away from him and made black 
curses on the day when first he saw 
light, and it was only the faith and 
wisdom and patience of the maid with 







































78 


APPLES OF GLORY 


the leafy hair that prevented him from 
reaching after the knife again and 
sticking it into his own ribs then and 
there. For this is what the runes said: 

WitH me ThoU ShalT TakE AwaY 
The SkiN of ThY FirsT BorN 
& PlentY ThoU ShalT HavE 
y ShE no MorE of ScorN 

“Ah, now,” says the maid, with her 
kind look that was like sunrise over 
the edge of the world, “the right foot 
follows the left foot, and good days 
follow bad ones. It seems that what¬ 
ever hard luck the first seeds left be¬ 
hind them, this has made it seventy 
times as heavy; but it may be that we 
can turn the purse inside out in the 
end and find a gulden caught in the 
seams of it. Come now,” says she, 
“ look up and be cheerful, if only for 


APPLES OF GLORY 


79 


my account, for I think I am growing 
weary with these days in the world, 
and I should like to be staying with 
your mother for a while.” 

So with one thing and another she 
put sweetness into his mind again, 
and they took up the knife and went 
on their way. The days went on just 
as the weeks had gone by, and when 
the good part of a year was gone, they 
came to the little gray lane with his 
mother’s house at the end of it. His 
mother came out to meet them, and 
kissed them both on brow and chin. 

“Well,” says she, “the longest jour¬ 
ney must end somewhere, and why 
not at home?—as the rat said when 
he came to his own hole and left the 
cat outside. And have you found 
your fortune?” 


80 


APPLES OF GLORY 


“Why, yes,” says the lad, as if he 
had never questioned the matter at all; 
“for a good wife is the greatest for¬ 
tune a man can have.” But of the 
knife he said nothing at all, for all its 
promise of plenty, since he could not 
bring his tongue to make the words. 

“You are a sensible lad,” says his 
mother, “and a credit to the family.” 
She took them both into the house, 
and for all she said or looked, you 
would never have known there was 
such a thing as green leaves in the 
universe, let alone on the head of the 
lass at the side of her. 

After that their days went by as 
smoothly as cream comes to the top 
of the milk pan; the lass with the 
green hair stayed in the house and 
wove and washed, and the lad went 


APPLES OF GLORY 


81 


into the fields and sowed and mowed, 
and the mother knitted stockings, 
some large and some small, and in 
the evenings told them tales that be¬ 
gan always “Once upon a time.” 
That was a happy set of days enough, 
for it was a pleasant thing to hear the 
rustle of the maid’s green hair in the 
little brown house, and to see the 
small soft leaves that grew around her 
face curl backwards into ringlets when 
she sat before the fire; and when the 
lad came in from the meadow, as 
brown as a lark, and whistling full as 
gay, the house was filled with the 
smell of sunshine and fresh air, and 
the blue and yellow dishes on the 
shelves appeared to jump for joy. All 
this time they said nothing to each 
other of the knife with the wooden 


82 


APPLES OF GLORY 


handle, and thought as little of it as 

» 

might be, but it lay in the lad’s pocket 
like a cold icicle against his side. 

Well, one day when the lad came 
back from the wide field at the foot of 
the hill, where he had been planting 
barley all the morning, he saw his 
mother at the door of the house, and 
her face said more than words to him. 

“What is amiss?” says he, with his 
heart sinking inside of him like a stone 
that one throws into the well. 

“My son,” says his mother, “Ill- 
luck has perched on the rooftree, and 
he is shedding his feathers. There is 
a birthday in the house to-day, and 
your first-born child has come to 
you,” says she, “but I must tell you 
that although it is rosy and fine, it is 
not like other children. And the lass 


APPLES OF GLORY 


83 


inside there has forgotten her patience 
and lost her wisdom, for she will have 
it that woe has come to you through 
her, because of her green hair.” 

“ It was I who brought woe to her 
and gave her that green hair,” says the 
lad, “and it is high time that I should 
take it away, though it be at the cost 
of flaying the first-born child.” 

And he took out the knife with a 
cold hand and went into the house. 
There was the kitchen, with the red 
curtains waving before the windows, 
and the cat purring on the floor, just 
as if nothing evil were to be coming; 
and there the lad saw his sweetheart 
by the fire, with a folded napkin in 
her hand, and her face was gray as 
moonlight. 

The lad’s mother opened the napkin 


84 


APPLES OF GLORY 


to show him the child, and his aston¬ 
ishment was too great to be told in 
any of the seven languages of my 
family. Sure enough, the baby was 
not as other children are, for it neither 
wept nor smiled, and neither kicked 
nor crowed; but there was no mis¬ 
chief either in saying that it was rosy 
and fine, since the lad’s first-born was 
no more and no less than a great 
ruddy apple, firm and sweet, and 
smelling of fresh air and sunshine. 

“Ah, my dear,” says the lass with 
the green hair, “this is what comes of 
your wedding a woman of the trees! 
In all the hard places of the world 
that we found together,” says she, “ I 
never regretted my leafy hair until this 
day.” 

“ If the knife do but stand by us as 


APPLES OF GLORY 


85 


the runes promise,” says the lad, “ you 
will never regret it after.” 

Now, however bonny an apple may 
be, there are few who would be glad 
of one as an heir to their name and 
fortunes; but even so the lad found it 
hard to think of the letters on the 
knife, for the apple’s rosy color made 
him mindful of the maid’s cheeks, and 
the smell of it was like her breath, and 
the cool touch of it like her hand. 
But he thought even more of her sor¬ 
row, and before he had time to relent 
or repent, he took up the rosy apple 
and struck the knife into the skin. It 
seemed to him that a little voice came 
up through the opening, so he cut 
faster and faster, and the thin strips 
of the apple skin fell on his wife’s 
leafy hair. 


86 


APPLES OF GLORY 


When the last thin ring of it fell 
down, the house was filled with the 
sound of falling things that tinkled, 
like icicles from the eaves of a house in 
winter,—and the lad and his mother 
stood with their lips apart and their 
eyes too wide for comfort, staring at 
the lass by the fire. For all the little 
green leaves had fallen from her head, 
and lay in bright piles upon the floor; 
they were leaves no longer, but shin¬ 
ing emeralds, and those that were wet 
with her tears were mixed with dia¬ 
monds. And as for the lass herself,— 
why, there she sat with her head and 
shoulders shrouded in soft brown hair, 
the color of young branches in the 
first part of the year. 

“ Look now,” says she, with soft 
new laughter, “you are like to lose 


APPLES OF GLORY 


87 


hold of our first-born son. Give him 
to me, and let him have his swaddling 
clothes.” And sure enough, when 
the lad looked at the white apple that 



he had in his hand, it was no apple at 
all, either white or otherwise, but a 
rosy fat baby, that greeted the world 
with wailing. 

And that I think is the end of the 































88 


APPLES OF GLORY 


story, for who am I that I should tell 
you how they lived happily ever after? 
There are some things one knows 
without using his ears or eyes, as the 
birds say every year when it is time to 
go south for the winter. This I must 
say, however, — that they had no more 
need for the emeralds than a sheep 
has for wings; for in a house where 
there is the beauty of sunrise, and the 
wisdom of sunset, the patience of life, 
and the faithfulness of death — and a 
baby too — why, there is nothing lack¬ 
ing at all, my granduncle says. 









fflDefflDimfflflil 


HlatfflilttiHlie-Dim 







































90 


WHAT AILED THE KING 


King Day 


— 






/ l) 








IGS 

_ KL _^ 










* - 

— # 

. 

- # 



„ . - 


O trum - pets, blow loud, And 



gate-ways, fall down, 



To wel-come His 




High - ness who en - ters the town. Let 




wim-ples of lawn, Come bow-ing to 























































































WHAT AILED THE KING 


91 



O primrose, awake,— 

Awake, yellow whin,— 
Embroider the gardens 
That he shall walk in; 

Let butterflies and swallows 
Perform a ballet 
To honor his coming 
And going away. 


His spear is of gold, 

His shield is of brass ; 

His mirror the dew 

Which is gray on the grass. 
Rise up, silver cities, 

Put darkness away — 
Cast open your windows. 
And welcome King Day! 

















A 




K 


\ 








WHAT AILED THE KING 


NCE upon a time 
there was a King 
who was so discon- 

■1 

tented that the whole 
world looked black 
and tasted brown to him. ■ And that is 
a queer thing, because all he had to 
do for himself was to breathe and 

I 

sleep; he had tailors and robe masters 
and body servants looking to his 
clothes for him, and cooks and tasters 
and stewards and butlers seeing to his 
meat for him, and ministers and gov¬ 
ernors and sheriffs and constables and 
judges and clerks and hundreds of 
other people making laws and signing 
papers for him. But still he was dis¬ 
contented. 











94 WHAT AILED THE KING 

By and by the people began to talk, 
—for when the biggest dish is out of 
place the biggest gap is seen; so the 
ministers drew their heads together 
and wagged their beards over the mat¬ 
ter, to see what should be done; and, 
to reduce a long thread to a needleful, 
they decided that the King had best 
take a wife at once. 

The poor King frowned and sighed 
and shook his head, but the gate was 
too high to jump over, and there was 
no other way round; so finally he 
yawned and said, “Yes, only hurry 
and have it over with.” 

First the ambassadors were sent out 
to distant countries, to look for 
Queens and Princesses of the blood; 
they carried long scrolls with gold 
letters and red seals, which bade the 


WHAT AILED THE KING 95 

ladies come to visit the King for a day 
or two. One by one the Queens 
came and the Princesses came, with 
long retinues in brocades and velvet, 
that filled the whole courtyard and 



swarmed over the stairs and balconies; 
and the King sat glumly at supper 
with one lady after another, each fair 
enough to make the flowers turn pale. 

But one by one, the Queens and 









96 


WHAT AILED THE KING 


Princesses went home again with their 
retinues straggling after. Listen! This 
was the way of it: 

The first night, as they sat at sup¬ 
per, the King always said, “Are you 
perfectly contented?” And the lady 
who was picking at the pheasant wing 
on the other side of the table always 
said, “Oh, yes, indeed; if only my 
territories were larger”—or “If only 
my ministers were more intelligent” 
—or “ If only my army had vanquished 
the king next door in the last battle.” 
And the King just put out his lip and 
frowned. 

The second night he always said, 
“ Could you sing me a song of con¬ 
tentment?” And the lady crumbling 
tarts on the other side of the table 
always said, “Oh, yes,” and called up 


WHAT AILED THE KING 97 

her minstrel, who stuck his thumbs 
into a lute and made frightful faces for 
half an hour, roaring about marches 
of victory and laurel wreaths and other 
uninteresting things. And the King 
just twisted his rings and scowled. 

The third night he always said, 
“Why am I discontented, do you 
think?” And the lady on the other 
side of the table, throwing sweetmeats 
to the dogs among the rushes, always 
said, “ I advise you to change your 
prime minister and the governor of 
the third province; you are probably 
not getting sufficient revenues and 
taxes.” So the King almost wept; 
and the ladies were all ushered out the 
front battlement gate. 

As they went away, the King always 
bowed and said, “Is there nothing I 


98 


WHAT AILED THE KING 


can give you?” And the lady in the 
coach on the other side of the moat 
always said, “Oh—thank you, yes; 
there is a diamond I very much ad¬ 
mired”—or “You have a blooded 
hound that matches mine very well” 
—or “ I should like the horse you were 
riding yesterday.” 

The King gave them what they 
wanted and almost smiled to see each 
one go; for in escaping the teeth of 
the house-dog, one often forgets that 
he once ran from a wolf. 

Next the ambassadors were sent out 
to the different points of the King’s 
own domain, to look for Countesses 
and Duchesses and Marchionesses 
and Ladies Honorable. They carried 
brazen trumpets, and blew a loud blast 
at each castle gate, enough to wake 


WHAT AILED THE KING 


99 


the stones, and bade the ladies come 
to visit the King for a day or two. 
One by one the Duchesses and Count¬ 
esses and Marchionesses and Ladies 
Honorable rode up on their palfreys, 
with a lad or two and a waiting maid 
lumping after; and the King sat sadly 
at supper with one lady after another. 
But one by one the Countesses and 
Duchesses and Marchionesses and 
Ladies Honorable went home again 
with their servants trotting behind 
them, for they were no better than the 
others. 

The first night, as they sat at sup¬ 
per, the King always said, “Are you 
perfectly contented?” And the lady 
who was cutting sausages on the other 
side of the table always said, “Oh, yes, 
indeed, if only my hair were longer” 



100 WHAT AILED THE KING 


—or “If my nose were straighter”— 
or “If my hands were whiter.” 

The second night, the King always 
asked, “ Is there a song about content¬ 
ment?” And the lady eating turnips 
at the other side of the table always 
said, “Oh,yes,” and wiped her mouth 
and sang very nosily a rondel of jousts 
and tournaments, and the delicious¬ 
ness of being loved by ladies like her¬ 
self. And the King fell asleep, with 
a frown on his brow. 

The third night, he always said, 
“ Why am I discontented, do you 
think?” And the lady munching 
marchpane on the other side of the 
table always said, “Oh, sir, how can 
discontent be harbored in so noble a 
bosom?”—or “Doubtless you burn 
to go on a great adventure — ” or “ Per- 



WHAT AILED THE KING 101 

haps you yearn for the true compan¬ 
ionship of a kindred soul!” And the 
King rose abruptly and went to his 
apartments, where he swore so dread¬ 



fully that the arras shivered on the wall 
to hear him. 


So the ladies were all ushered out 
the front gate, and as they went away 
the King always bowed and said, “ Is 






















102 WHAT AILED THE KING 


there nothing I can give you?” And 
the lady on the palfrey, stamping on 
the other side of the moat, always said, 
“Oh, noble sir, if I might have one 
of your Highness’s gloves for a keep¬ 
sake”—or “May I have a lock of 
your Majesty’s hair?” Sometimes 
they got what they wanted, and some¬ 
times they did not, but in the end they 
were all gone,—and that was the main 
consideration, as the man said when he 
beat the dog because the cat had 
stolen the pickled herrings. 

After that things were dull in the 
castle, for there was no use at all, the 
King said, in shaking any more sour 
apples on his head; he would have 
one ripe and sweet,—or none at all. 
So he sat before the hall fire in satin 
cushions, and stirred the logs with his 


WHAT AILED THE KING 103 

velvet shoe, and pulled the ears of the 
spaniels, and yawned and yawned and 
yawned. All the time, the tailors and 
robe masters and lackeys and body 
servants were looking to his clothes 
for him; and the cooks and tasters 
and stewards and butlers were seeing 
to his meat for him; and ministers 
and governors and sheriffs and con¬ 
stables and judges and clerks and hun¬ 
dreds of other people were making 
laws and signing papers for him. 

But one day he felt so unspeakably 
stuffy and still that he had to go away 
from the fire; so he wandered off into 
great halls and wide passageways that 
he had never seen before. He fell 
downstairs because he did not know 
the way, and thumped his head smartly 
on unexpected doors, and tore his silk 


104 WHAT AILED THE KING 


sleeves on respectable and useful 
hooks, which had been in their right 
place much longer than he had. (And 
there is more in that last plum than 
the meat alone, if you bite hard 
enough!) By and by he came to a 
little low door with a latchstring in it; 
and when he opened it, there on the 
other side was a little sunny room full 
of shelves. On the window sill there 
sat a round gray cat with its paws cud¬ 
dled under it like hen and chickens, 
nodding at a red flower in a pot; and 
in the middle of the room was a slim 
lass in duffel gray, with a long brown 
braid and a pair of blue eyes, scrub¬ 
bing the knives. 

“Who are you?” says the King, 
taken aback. 

“I’m the scullion,” says she, civil 











































































106 WHAT AILED THE KING 


enough, but with no more “noble 
sir” or “gracious majesty” than a 
pigeon. 

“Isn’t there anything to sit on?” 
says the King. 

“The floor and the window sill,” 
says the lass; “there is not time to sit 
down very often, in here.” 

So the King lifted the cat and set 
it on his knee, and sat in the sun. 
“And are you good at answering 
questions?” says he. 

“ None better, if it Vonly my tongue 
that is to wag,” says the lass; “I can’t 
spare time to use my hands.” 

“Well, then,” says the King, “are 
you perfectly contented?” 

“Surely not that,” says the lass; 
“who is? But I have work to fill my 
hands and the sun to fill my eyes, and 


WHAT AILED THE KING 107 

the cat on my knee when I’m lone¬ 
some.” 

“Um,” says the King, like a man 
that has had the breath struck out of 
him. “And is there a song of con¬ 
tentment, do you think?” 

“Listen!” says the lass; “you have 
it there.” And sure enough, from 
the King’s knee the gray cat hummed 
a drowsy tune of peace and comfort, 
and through it and above it he heard 
a slow, even sound of mellow ticking. 
Now the King had never heard either 
of those noises before in his days, but 
he was a little ashamed to ask what 
they meant, and so he put his third 
question: 

“Why am I discontented, do you 
think?” The lass shook her head. 

. “ Don’t you know? ” says the King, 


108 WHAT AILED THE KING 

very much upset that his well of know¬ 
ledge should prove shallow. 

“Oh, yes, I can see, fast enough,” 
says the lass, “but you’ll not under¬ 
stand if I tell you.” But the King 
must and would hear; so at last the 
maid looked up from her scrubbing, 
and says she, “The clock does not 
go fast enough.” 

“What clock?” says the King. 

“The great clock up in the hall,” 
says she, — “the hall where you sit 
before the fire from day’s end to day’s 
end. It is well known in this part of 
the house that it has said nothing but 
twenty-five minutes after seven, ever 
since you became the King.” 

“Oh, that thing on the wall,” says 
the King, waking up; “I have always 
thought it was meant as a decora- 



WHAT AILED THE KING 


109 


tion. And does it say other things 
beside twenty-five minutes after 
seven? ” 

“A many others,” says she, nod¬ 
ding. And what would make the 
clock move again? That was the 
next question the King put. 

“Ah, now,” says the lass, “when 
you get down to that—! It is prob¬ 
ably because the bowl is empty and 
the fork and the spoon are idle.” 

“ That is not Christian language 
you are speaking to me,” says the 
King. “ Rede me your riddle.” 

“Perhaps,” says the scullion, “if 
you would ask the tailors and the 
cooks and the governors — ” So the 
King got out of the window and put 
the gray cat back where he found it; 
but there was still another question, 


110 WHAT AILED THE KING 

Was there nothing he could give 
her? 

“ Do you come back by and by 
and ask me that,” says the lass; and 
with that the King had to be sat¬ 
isfied. 

First he scrambled up the stairs into 
the big hall and cast an eye upon the 
clock that hung there. Sure enough, 
it was as still and quiet as if it were 
keeping a secret that might send a 
man to the gallows. So without more 
ado the King turned his back on it 
and went off to find the remedy from 
the folk that the lass had mentioned. 
He marched off to the tailors and the 
robe masters and the lackeys and the 
body servants; and how was he to 
keep the bowl from being empty and 
the fork and the spoon from being 


WHAT AILED THE KING 


111 


idle ? The tailors put a thimble and a 
needle into his right hand, and showed 
him how to make his own clothes; 
and the robe masters showed him how 
to put them away; and the lackeys 
showed him how to lay them out; and 
the body servants showed him how to 
put them on. 

“ There!” said they. “That is work 
for the fork, right enough,” says the 
tailors, — “but it will never fill the 
bowl for you.” 

The King hurried back to the great 
hall and looked at the clock that hung 
there. It was as quiet as the evening 
before Doomsday. 

So next he went to the cooks and 
the tasters and the stewards and the 
butlers. How was he to keep the 
bowl from being empty and the spoon 


112 WHAT AILED THE KING 

from being idle ? — that was what the 
King asked them. The cook put a 
pan and ladle in his left hand and 
showed him how to baste a fowl; and 
the stewards showed him how to carve 
it; and the butlers showed him how 
to serve it. 

“ There 1 That is work for the 
spoon, for sure,” said they; “ — but 
it will never fill the bowl for you.” 

Nevertheless, the King stepped into 
the great hall and looked at the clock 
on the wall. He thought that he 
saw one of the hands quivering a 
little, but says he to himself, “ I can¬ 
not waste time looking at this clock 
eternally, like a maid ogling a looking- 
glass,” and he turned his back and 
went off to find the governors and 
ministers. But listen! No sooner 


WHAT AILED THE KING 113 

had he said those words and left the 
hall, than the clock struck twelve and 
began to tick-tock away like any clock 
that does not belong to a King; and 
this is the curious part of it, — that the 
ticking sounded like contented laugh¬ 
ter in the heart of a wise old man. 

But of this the King was innocent 
and unknowing, for he was searching 
out the governors and the ministers 
and the sheriffs and constables and 
judges and clerks and the hundreds 
of other people who were making the 
laws and signing the papers for him. 
And how was he to keep the bowl 
from being empty? 

“Ah, have you an empty one?” 
said they; “that is an excellent thing, 
for ours are full and running over 
long ago. Come in, come in!” 


114 WHAT AILED THE KING 


Well, after that the governors 
showed him how to find his people— 
(“I think I see what she meant,” says 
the King)—and the ministers showed 
him how to make laws for them—(“ If 
my head is the bowl,” says the King, 
“it is certainly filling!”)—the judges 
showed him how to read the laws for 
them, and the sheriffs and constables 
showed him how to teach the laws to 
them; and the clerks showed him how 
to write down the laws in good black 
letters as round as apples. 

“Enough!” says the King. “The 
bowl is full to breaking, and the fork 
and spoon are busy too, as never they 
were! I marvel that I never thought 
of this before,” says he. 

But of course that was not strange, 
for Kings are not born with common 



WHAT AILED THE KING 115 

sense, and that is why all the Kings 
in fairy tales are willing to share 
their kingdom and their family with 
young adventurers who are born 
with common sense and not much 
else. 

Well, you know as well as I do what 
thing the King did first; he ran back 
to the long hall and looked at the 
clock; and indeed he scarcely recog¬ 
nized it, for it had a different face 
entirely. He had never seen a clock 
that said anything but twenty-five 
minutes after seven, and now this one 
said fifteen minutes to three,—and 
you have no idea how much that 
means on the face of a clock. But 
the King had no time to stop and 
stare at it, for he saw too how the 
clock had been ticking so fast that a 


116 WHAT AILED THE KING 

year and a day had gone by since he 
spoke to the scullion lass. 

So the King ran down the back 
stairs, without bumping his head or 
tearing his sleeves, and pulled the lat- 
chet string in the little low door. 
There was the sunny room full of 
shelves, and the gray cat in the win¬ 
dow humming to the red flower; and 
there was the lass in gray, sitting in 
the window sill and stroking the cat, 
— and there were twelve gray threads 
in her hair, one for every month in 
the year. The King knelt down in 
front of her and laid his head in her 
lap. 

“And so you are contented now,” 
says the lass, with a wise smile. 

“Ah, well, not quite,” says the 
King, “ for you have not answered my 


WHAT AILED THE KING 117 

fourth question yet; is there nothing 
I can give you?” says he. 

“No,” says the lass, “nothing that 
I have not got already.” Well! that 
was a sour cupful for the King, for he 
was wishful to have her ask for a love- 
token like the rest, so that he could 
be asking her to take himself along 
with it, — because now he was all of a 
mind to agree with the Prime Minister 
and take a wife; and he was going to 
have the scullion lass or nobody. 

“You are not wanting anything at 
all?” says he. 

“No,” says the lass, “I am not 
wanting anything more than I hold on 
my knees at this moment.” At that 
the King smiled again, for he could 
see that her wishes were to his as one 
egg is to another. 


118 WHAT AILED THE KING 

So they went upstairs together,— 
and they did not forget to take the 
gray cat along with them. And if any 
one of the three has been discontented 
from that day to this, I have yet to 
hear of it; for the King went on with 
the business that filled the bowl, and 
the Queen, beside making sagacious 
suggestions in those matters, attended 
likewise to the affairs of the fork and 
the spoon. And the clock in that 
house went faster than the clocks any¬ 
where else, and they were more richly 
contented than any one else in that 
land. 

And what is it that makes a clock 
go fast or slow? Why, it is a fairy 
called Father Time, who has his dwell¬ 
ing in all clocks; and if you use him 
well, he laughs contentedly in the 


WHAT AILED THE KING 119 


clock that is his house, and dances in 
the wheels of it, so that the hands go 
faster and faster, and you are filled 
with contentment too. But he is a 
modest fellow, that will not be watched 
at his tricks, and he trots fastest when 
you turn your back and attend to 
something else. 






















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122 EVERYTHING FOR NOTHING 


The Song of the Silver Faggot 


Use grace notes freely , as in folk-song 


in 


By now the hills 


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hill - folk dance and 

sing; 

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place is emp - ty, My cup is . dry 














































































EVERYTHING FOR NOTHING 123 


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Where the dance floors ring. 


Within the hills my home is, 

Where hill-folk shout and play; 

Oh, where is Held, the fairest ? — 

The old folk say. 

The young men dance with the maidens, 
And the hall is bright with their hair; 
Oh, where is Held ? — they are asking; 
Oh, where ? Where ? Where B ? 

















f 


EVERYTHING FOR NOTHING 


NCE upon a time 
there was a lad who 
lived on a bit of stony 
ground in the hills; 
he had no father but 
hunger and no mother but cold,—and 
they were cruel foster parents enough, 
I can tell you. When the wind grew 
big and the sun grew small, the lad 
went out to find wood for the fire. 
He trudged through snow and stum¬ 
bled on stones, but neither stick nor 
twig could he find. By and by he 
came to the big hills, and what should 
be in front of him but a little old man 
as bent as the moon at the quarter, 
with a bundle of faggots onlhis back. 
The lad looked at him with his mouth 











126 EVERYTHING FOR NOTHING 


open, for there was no more wood 
thereabout than there are feathers on 
my great-uncle’s cow. And while he 



I 

I 

stared, one of the faggots in the bun¬ 
dle dropped loose and fell in the snow, 
v Up ran the lad, as quick and quiet 
as running water under the ice, and 
snatched the bit of wood. He tucked 
it under his jacket, and set out hotfoot 









EVERYTHING FOR NOTHING 127 

for home, but before he had gone very 
far, he stopped and scratched his head. 
“See now,” says he, “this will do no 
more to warm me than a last year’s 
snow; the wolf starved on the nuts he 
stole from the squirrel.” So he turned 
on his heels and trotted back. There 
was the little old man, plodding 
through the snow. The lad ran up to 
him and held out the bit of faggot. 

“Take better care of your wood, 
neighbor,” says he; “a bit of it 
dropped in the snow just now.” 

The old man turned to look at him, 
and the lad saw that he had pointed 
furry ears and whiskers like a cat’s, 
long and thin, — and his heart nearly 
fled out of his ribs, for he knew that 
he was speaking to one of the little 
people that live in the hills. 


128 EVERYTHING FOR NOTHING 

The hill goblin shook his head. 
“That is no stick of mine,” says he, 
though he seemed in a mighty rage 
about it, for all that; “you can see for 
yourself that I have none like it.” 
And sure enough, he had not; for his 
sticks were just wooden faggots, and 
when the lad looked at the one he 
held, he saw that it was white silver 
from end to end. Well, it seemed 
that there was nothing to do but let 
good fortune roost where it liked; so 
off the lad set for home. 

But bless you, he had not gone 
more than a fourth part of a league 
when he came upon an old crone who 
was like to die of cold. 

“Ah, good master,” says she, “do 
help a poor old body to a bit of a 
fire!” But the lad was all for hurry- 


EVERYTHING FOR NOTHING 129 

'x 

ing on. “No, no,” says he, “I have 
no wood to burn.” 

“What is that in your jacket?” says 
the old crone. 

“ It is a bit of silver, and silver will 
not burn,” says the lad. 

“Ah, yes, will it,” says the old 
woman, with a gleam in her eyes; “ so 
let us have a bit of fire now, like a 
good lad.” 

Well, well! It is hard enough to 
give up a crust when one is starving,— 
but to give up the crust when it turns 
out to have butter on it! That is quite 
another thing. However, there is not 
so much to be gained by riches, after 
all, as the spider said when he had bad 
feelings inside after eating all the flies 
in his larder; so finally the lad knelt 
down in the snow and set spark to the 


130 EVERYTHING FOR NOTHING 

silver faggot. There was a merry 
blaze in an instant, and more glow 
and flame than a whole bundle of 
faggots gives. 

But the lad’s brown locks nearly 
stood up for fright, for there was a 
smell of burning hair, and a voice in 
the hills said: 

If that is Hild beside you, 

Tell her that we have learned 
That Held is being burned. 

“Akh! my own daughter 1” cried 
the old woman. She leaped up and 
stamped out the fire, and when the 
lad looked around, he could see her 
no more than one could see a cricket 
in a basket of coal. He picked over 
the heap of ashes with hands that 
shook like old leaves in a winter wind; 
but there was the faggot, with only a 


EVERYTHING FOR NOTHING 131 


third part of it gone, and beside it in 
the coals was a silver hunting knife of 
very curious pattern. There were 



runes on it that said, “ I cut all 
things.” 

“Come,” says the lad, “Misfortune 
has married Luck, and they have 
named their daughter after her grand¬ 
mother ; but I ’m hoping that Held 











132 EVERYTHING FOR NOTHING 

was not so badly burned, after all.” 
So he|set off for home, but on his own 
doorstep, what should he see but two 
children staring at him. 

“Warm us!” says one. 

“And feed us! ” says the other. 

“ I have nothing but stones to burn,” 
says the lad, “ and only a cup of milk 
to feed you with.” 

Well, it seemed that a thin stream 
was better than no river at all, and so the 
three of them went into the lad’s house. 

“What is that in your jacket?” says 
the first child. 

“ That is a bit of silver,” says the lad. 

“Ah, that will burn,” says the 
second child, with his eyes aflame. 
“Come, now, warm the milk for us 
like a good lad.” 

Well, it had been hard to give up 


EVERYTHING FOR NOTHING 133 


the crust plain and the crust buttered; 
but to lose a buttered crust that had 
the makings of cheese in it! That 
was difficult! But the lad looked at 
the children who stood shivering in 
the doorway. “ Wealth without heart 
is meat without salt,” says he; and 
finally he got down on his knees and 
set spark to the silver faggot. 

Up sprang a fire that filled the 
hearth, and the lad had much ado to 
hold the cup of milk over it. But the 
room was filled with the smell of 
burning hair, and a voice in the hills 
behind the house said, 

If Hald and Huld are with you. 

Tell them that we have learned 
That Held is being burned. 

“Akh! our own sister!” screamed 
the children. They leaped upon the 


134 EVERYTHING FOR NOTHING 


fire and stamped it out, and when the 
lad looked for them he could see no 
more of them than one can see a grain 
of salt in a handful of sand. The lad 
picked over the ashes, and there was 
the faggot, half gone, but beside it lay 
a silver armlet with runes upon it that 
said, “ I strengthen you.” So the lad 
kissed the faggot,—and jumped into 
bed to keep warm. 

Well, he bit the sweet side of the 
apple for many days after that; for 
the knife turned up the stones in the 
ground, and the armlet made him so 
strong that he could carry whole tons 
of them over to the quarry behind the 
hills, and before very long he was 
making a bag to keep his guldens in. 
But the downiest cushion has some 
hard spot in it, and so the lad found 


EVERYTHING FOR NOTHING 135 


out. One night he heard a lamenting 
and crying in the corner of the room: 

By now the hills are green again. 

And the hill-folk dance and sing; 

My place is empty and my cup is dry 
Where the dance floors ring. 

The lad seized a torch and looked all 
over the house, but he could see noth¬ 
ing but the silver faggot in the corner. 
That was a nut to crack, tfor sure! 
The next night he heard the voice 
again, crying and duling: 

Under the hills my home is, 

Where the hill-folk shout and play; 

Oh, where is Held the Fairest ? 

The old folk say. 

That time the lad had no need of a 
torch, for he knew well enough that it 
was the silver faggot and no other that 
was speaking. The cold sweat stood 
out on him like suds on the tubs of a 


136 EVERYTHING FOR NOTHING 


wash-day; but he was bound he would 
not let go of the silver faggot. When 
a man holds Luck by the crown and 
lets him go, so that only a hair or two 
remains in the grasp, he is a fool,— 
that was what the lad said to himself. 
There was to be no more burning of 
the faggot that smelled so oddly when 
the fire licked it; but it is a good 
thing to put something by against old 
age, as the dog said when he buried the 
cat’s bone in the middle of the garden; 
and the silver faggot could be ex¬ 
changed in the village for much money. 

But the next night the voice was 
hoarse from weeping, and the lad 
could scarcely hear it: 

The young men dance with the maidens. 

And the hall is bright with their hair; 

Where is Held? they are asking — 

Oh, where ? Where ? Where ? 


EVERYTHING FOR NOTHING 137 

“Well, well,” says the lad, “I have 
got more than a bargain from the fag¬ 
got, as it stands; and the man who 
wants more than enough is like to 
have it choke him.” 

So he picked up the faggot and 
trudged off to the hills. By and by 
he came to the place where he had 

seen the old man \with a bundle of 
• 

sticks. He put down the faggot on 
the rocks and crept behind a great 
stone to see what should happen. 

When the sun came up, — grom! 
grom! A door opened into the hill. 
The faggot flew into the air, and when 
it came down, behold, it was no fag¬ 
got at all, but a tall fine lass with 
shining hair and clear gray eyes. She 
walked through the door, and the hill 
closed behind her as quiet as if it had 



138 EVERYTHING FOR NOTHING 

done nothing else since the day it 
came there ,* and there was the lad left 
with the north wind for company. 
But he was not one to cry Well-a-day 
and let a matter drop. He put the 
knife of sharpness into the hill and 
cut as clean a slit in it as the cook 
makes in the dough; and then he just 
rolled up his sleeves and stuck his 
fingers in the crack, and by grace of 
the armlet of strength he pulled it 
apart until he could see what was hap¬ 
pening among the hill-people down 
below. 

:j- There were any number of them, all 
with pointed furry ears and long thin 

l 

whiskers, and cows’ tails that hung 
behind them,—all except the lass with 
the gray eyes, who stood in the midst 
pf Them.’ 


EVERYTHING FOR NOTHING 139 

“ Well, here you are safe at last, as 
the cat said when she swallowed the 
sparrow,” says one little old troll to 
her; “and what adventures did you 
have ? ” 

“Yes, yes,” said they all; “what 
adventures did you have ? ” And they 
sat down with their tails spread over 
their feet prepared to listen. 

“You shall hear,” says the lass. 
“As you know well enough, I was 
weary of carrying the heavy hill-tail 
about, and alarmed at the prospect of 
living for centuries, as the rest of you 
do; and I knew I could lose the tail 
and the life which is neither living nor 
dying only- by fire or mortal marriage. 
So when father complained of the 
noise of the quarries in the other hill 
where we used to live, I gave him no 


140 EVERYTHING FOR NOTHING 


rest until he changed us all into faggots 
and packed us in a bundle to bring 
over here. On the way I took my 
chance, and jumped out of the bundle 
into the snow; and there a shivering 
lad picked me up and was minded to 
make off with what he thought to be a 
common faggot. But he brought it 
back, though for all he knew he was 
to freeze that night. Everything for 
nothing! That is the kind of a lad 
one wishes to see more of; so I made 
myself into a silver stick, and my own 
father had to go off without me, 
though he would have been willing to 
play tricks enough to touch the hill 
metal and keep it himself. 

“After that, who should come along 
but my mother, ready to play tricks 
likewise, for she too had more than 






































142 EVERYTHING FOR NOTHING 

one eye on the silver for its own sake. 
She wheedled him into setting fire to 
it, to smoke off the touch of his mor¬ 
tal fingers, — and the fire burned off a 
good part of the hill-tail; but before 
she could lay hands on the silver that 
remained, somebody here in the hills 
called out: 

If that is Hild beside you, 

Tell her that we have learned 
That Held is being burned. 

And my mother stamped out the fire 
in a great hurry, or I should have 
been rid of the wretched tail all at 
once. However, for all the lad knew, 
he was losing his stick just to warm an 
old goody,—everything for nothing 1 
That is the kind of a lad that pleases 
me; so while the fire cooled I made 
a knife out of the burned tail-bones.” 


EVERYTHING FOR NOTHING 143 

“And where is that knife now?” 
says the little old goblin. 

“It’ll come if I need it,” says the 
lass. “And next, who should be at 
the lad’s door but my brother and sis¬ 
ter,— and they too were greedy, with 
more eyes than three on the bit of hill 
silver the lad carried. They begged 
him to set fire to it, so that they could 
march off with it, — and the lad did it 
out of pity, though there was not 
much left for him; but before they 
could snatch it, somebody here at 
home called out: 

If Hald and Huld are with you, 

Tell them that we have learned 
That Held is being burned. 

So they stamped out the fire and made 
off, but by that time the tail was quite 
gone,—and now I am as fair as any> 


144 EVERYTHING FOR NOTHING 

mortal maid that ever danced a reel. 
But for all the lad knew, he was losing 
his precious stick just to warm two 
ragged brats, and that is the kind of a 
lad that one’s heart warms to; so while 
the fire cooled I made an armlet of 
strength out of the burned tail bones.” 

‘‘And where is it now?” says the 
little old goblin. 

‘‘It’ll come when I need it,” says 
the lass. ‘‘And in the end, I knew 
that I should never find my own shape 
again until I saw the hills; and I 
begged and I pleaded until the lad 
brought me back, — and here I am. 
But for all he knew, he was losing his 
precious stick for good and all, — and 
with no more reason than the old 
woman had for wearing her shoe for a 
nightcap. Everything for nothing!” 



EVERYTHING FOR NOTHING 145 

“ But now you are at home again,” 
says the little old troll, “ you will cer¬ 
tainly be thinking of taking a hus¬ 
band.” 

“ Well, yes; now you lay tongue to 
the matter, I am thinking of it,” says 
the lass. 

“Yes, yes, and which one of us will 
you have?” said all the young hill- 
goblins together, and they pulled at 
their jerkins and stood in line before 
her. Weill You can imagine how 
bitter that dose was for the lad lying 
up on the hill with his fingers in the 
crack. But listen! 

“This is my mind,” says the lass 
with the gray eyes. “ I will marry the 
lad who gives the most for me.” 
Well, well, what a hurrying and a 
scurrying there was then! All the 


146 EVERYTHING FOR NOTHING 

kings of the world could not have 
given her what one of the hill-goblins 
did. Silver and gold and jewels were 
strewn in front of her, until the floor 
glittered. But the lass shook her 
head. “This is not enough,” says 
she; “ I grew up in the hills, and I 
have played with these things; I want 
the love of a red heart, and none of 
you are giving me that!” 

“Come, come, no nicker-necker- 
ing,” says the little old troll; “no 
more of this stuff about red hearts 
and love-making! ” The maid laughed 
and laughed. 

“ ‘Let us not speak of tails,’ said the 
rabbit to the fox,” says she. “Why 
should you wish to speak of hearts — 
who have none?” 

“Give us the knife and the armlet 


EVERYTHING FOR NOTHING 147 

then,” says the old troll; “they were 
fashioned of that which rightfully be¬ 
longs in the hills. Come!” 

Now the lad up on the hill with his 
fingers in the crack was not looking 
on and playing a tune upon his fin¬ 
gers. “Hei!” says he, “If the knife 
and the armlet are to come when she 
needs them, I think they had best be 
starting now.” So he took off the 
armlet and hung it around the knife- 
hilt. 

“ Here you are,” says he, and leaned 
over the crack. “Take ’em and wel¬ 
come! They’ve done me more good 
than they ’ll ever do you, as the soldier 
said to the cannon ball when it took 
off his legs.” 

He dropped them into the hill,— 
but the armlet made the knife so 


148 EVERYTHING FOR NOTHING 

mighty that it cut clean through the 
earth and disappeared in China on the 
other side; and the wide slit it left is 
called Knarmf Cut to this day. 

And when they fell, all the hill 
people scurried into corners, and the 
jewels and the finery crumbled into 
moss and weeds, — but of all that the 
lad saw nothing at all, for he was 
looking at the clear eyes of the lass at 
the edge of the cleft. “ I have a red 
heart for you,” said he, “but nothing 
else.” 

“That is enough and more,” says 
the lass; “ I know that heart of yours.” 
So she laid her two hands in his, and 
he lifted her out of the hill and set her 
down beside him in the sun. 

“You have given everything again, 
without being proper sure that you 



EVERYTHING FOR NOTHING 149 


receive something good in return,” 
said she, with her head tucked under 
his chin. 

“It is too bad,” says the lad, “to 
deny any word of yours on the morn¬ 
ing of our wedding day; but this is 
the time that I know I am getting 
everything worth having in the world.” 

And the years after that, and the 
months, and the days and the hours 
and the minutes, all told him he was 
right. 




















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152 ADVENTURES OF MINKIN MOUSE 


In Ispahan 




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ADVENTURES OF MINKIN MOUSE 153 



they are low and lean - ly made, In 





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Is - pa— Is - pa - han. 


In Indostan, where I shall die — 

In Indostan, in Indostan — 

The roads are long and brown and dry ; 
The wine is low, the moon is high 
In Indostan, in Indostan. 

But I shall live on good black bread, 
Red leaves shall crown my jolly head; 

I shall be fat when I am dead 
In Indo—Indostan. 






















































THE AMIABLE ADVENTURES 
OF MINKIN MOUSE 


N the beginning of 
things, when matters 
were still unsettled, 
and the hippopotamus 
and the nightingale 
were more alike than they are now, 
there lived young Minkin Mouse, who 
had nothing at all but his wits and 
bright eyes and the gray coat he was 
born in. Now these are all excellent 
things, but one can neither eat them 
nor buy with them, and you must con¬ 
sider that a coat alone is little enough 
covering for a man of the world. So 
when his father died, and the share of 
the family estate that fell to Minkin 
Mouse was seen to be no more or less 















156 ADVENTURES OF MINKIN MOUSE 

than a good strip of cheese-rind, he 
put his inheritance into his pocket, and 
spread his toes in the highway dust. 

“Now then,” says he, “which way 
shall I go? Shall I go down by the 
sea and be a sailor, and smell of tar 
all the rest of my days, and have no 
virtues but a long tongue and a sun¬ 
burned face? Or shall I trudge off 
to the hills, and dig in the dirt for 
gold and diamonds, and get in bad 
odor with the pixies for crumbling at 
their castle walls? Or shall I stay 
where I am, and wait to see what 
comes by?” But all the time, as he 
was stirring up his mind this way and 
that, he was trotting along the wide 
highway, and presently he came to the 
outskirts of a mighty town. There he 
met a fox, with a suit of russet clothes, 


ADVENTURES OF MINKIN MOUSE 157 

and fine leather boots with flaring 
tops, and a feather in the side of his 
hat, fastened in with a jewelled buckle. 

“Ah there, neighbor,” says the 
fox, with his thumbs in his belt; “you 
are going to the fair, I suppose?” 
Now Minkin Mouse, even so early in 
his career, was not one to open his 
coat and show the pattern of his waist¬ 
coat to the first man that passed, 
particularly when he had none to 
show. 

“Have you come from the fair?” 
says he; “and what’s to do there?” 

“Great times,” says the fox, twisting 
his whiskers; “buying and selling, 
coming and going; such men as make 
your heart sink into your boots, and 
such maids as bring it into your mouth 
again; grinning and mourning, and 


158 ADVENTURES OF MINKIN MOUSE 


trading and wagering, — ah, such wa¬ 
gering as never you heard of before! ” 

“Very likely,” says Minkin Mouse, 
who had as much knowledge of wager¬ 
ing as I have of China and Greenland; 
“and how did you fare with it all?” 

“ Mighty well, mighty well,” says 
the fox, with a shake of his ears. “ I ’ll 
wager with you, if you like, to put a 
nightcap on my day at the fair. Come 
now; I ’ll lay my russet coat against 
your gray one that you cannot guess 
the sum that I have in my pockets,”— 
and he held up a little leather bag that 
seemed to be bursting with pence, and 
was choked at the throat with a broad 
yellow thong. Minkin Mouse looked 
at it and looked at it. At last he 
cleared his throat — ahem!—and says 
he; 



ADVENTURES OF MINKIN MOUSE 159 

“I lay wager you have fifty-three 
pence in your pockets,” says he. The 
fox laughed and slapped his knees, 
i “ Somebody has been whispering,” 
says he, “ for that is the sum I earned 
to-day. But for all that, you have lost 
the wager. Give me your coat.” 

“ By no means,” says Minkin Mouse; 
“give me yours.” 

“You are not accustomed to the 
wagering of the towns,” says the fox, 
with a chuckle as oily as melted butter 
in the sun; “ the wager was upon the 
sum I have in my pockets, and as you 
see, I have nothing at all in any of 
them,” — and sure enough, with his 
free hand he pulled all his pockets 
inside out. “You are a silly mouse,” 
says the fox, grinning so that the cor¬ 
ners of his mouth must have met be- 


160 ADVENTURES OF MINKIN MOUSE 


hind him; “and here I was holding 
up the bag before your nose, with 
every penny inside of it!” 



“Ah, well,” says Minkin Mouse, 
“in a case like this it is best to main¬ 
tain a philosophic calm, and reflect 
that I have learned the heart of this 
business of wagering, as it is practised 




















ADVENTURES OF MINKIN MOUSE 161 

in the towns.” And he put his hands 
on his collar, as if he were going to 
strip off his coat. “But stay,” says 
he, and plunges his fist into a pocket; 
“ I am forgetting to take out my poor 
father’s last bequest. And perhaps,” 
says he, as gentle and civil as a notary 
at a bedside, “you would like to make 
one wager more on that?” 

“ I am not so sure,” says the fox. 

k 

“How do I know that he left you 
anything? ” 

“ You yourself said that I was going 
to the fair,” says Minkin Mouse, very 
meek; “why should a man go to a 
fair unless he has something to sell or 
to buy? And you can see I am in no 
state to buy anything! ” 

“ True enough,” says the fox. “ Let 
us wager, then,” says he, rubbing his 


162 ADVENTURES OF MINKIN MOUSE 

> 

paws as if he felt the mouse between 
them. “ Now then, I have had such 
luck to-day that I can afford to allow 
you the statement of the terms.” 

“Well,” says Minkin Mouse, “let 
us be perfectly fair about matters. 
Suppose we do not mention money in 
this business; do you then prefer 
clothes or jewels?” says he. The 
fox’s eyes gleamed like torches held 
over dark water. 

“Jewels,” says he. 

“Very well,” says Minkin Mouse; 
“let us lay all of our clothes against 
all of our jewels; if you guess what 
my father’s bequest is, that I carry 
with me, then you may take all the 
jewels; if you do not guess properly, 
then I am the winner, and I take all 
the clothes. Is that fair?” 


ADVENTURES OF MINKIN MOUSE 163 

“ Perfectly,” says the fox, in spite of 
the fact that he saw no sign of jewels 
on the mouse, for says he to himself, 
“ No man speaks thus confidently of 
jewels if he has nothing of the sort 
about him; the mouse must have a 
precious stone in that pocket he holds 
so carefully, and he is on the way to 
sell it at the fair, for sure and certain.” 
So he spat on his paws and turned 
three somersaults forward and back¬ 
ward, to refresh his wit, and came up 
with his eyes shining. 

“Come now,” says Minkin Mouse, 
“what did my father leave me?— 
sticks or stones or good cream 
cheese?” The fox laughed at the 
idea of cheese, and wagged his 
head. 

“You cannot help giving it away 


164 ADVENTURES OF MINKIN MOUSE 

in your own words,” says he; “your 
father left you stones, and precious 
stones at that. I win,” says he; “give 
me the jewels to put with my silver 
buttons and the buckle on my hat! ” 

“Nonsense,” says Minkin Mouse, 
bringing his hand out of his pocket 
and showing the musty cheese-rind. 
“My father left me that, and lucky I 
was to get it; and as for going to the 
fair, I am going there to improve my 
fortunes in just such fashion as this, 
though I did not] know that there was 
a fair until you put it into my head. 
Off with your clothes I I win.” 

“Hoity-toity!” says the fox; “you 
cannot wager something you have not 
got! Why did you mention jewels 
so confidently?” 

“Why did you wager on them so 


ADVENTURES OF MINKIN MOUSE 165 

confidently?” says Minkin Mouse; 
“I wagered all the jewels there were 
between us, not promising that I had 
any at all. You yourself said that it 
was fair enough. Come now, I’m in 
a bit of a hurry.” So with all his 
grumbling and moaning, the fox was 
obliged to take off his jaunty cap with 
the feather in it, and his russet coat 
and his fine leather boots with the 
flaring tops. And he departed, run¬ 
ning along through the bushes, for he 
was ashamed that any one should see 
him with none of his glory left but his 
hat buckle and his leather purse. 

As for Minkin Mouse, he put on the 
fine garments of the fox’s fair-day, and 
because they were a little too long 
and too wide for him, he pulled him¬ 
self up and he pushed himself out 


166 ADVENTURES OF MINKIN MOUSE 


until he fitted them very presentably. 
And so he struck out, with the left 
foot following the right foot, until 
he came to the town itself, and en¬ 
tered the great gates. And all over 
again he thought to himself, “ Which 
way shall I go? Shall I go into the 
fair, and traffic with errand-boys, and 
get nothing but dust and curses for 
my pains? Or shall I go up into the 
city streets and bargain with the mer¬ 
chants who sell bad things for good 
prices? Assuredly both would be a 
sorrow and disgrace to these fair-day 
garments of Brother Colfox. I think 
the King would be glad to have a look 
at them,” says Minkin Mouse, “ and 
perhaps he would deign to glance at 
me who am inside of them,” says he, 
and so off he went up the hill to the 


ADVENTURES OF MINKIN MOUSE 167 

castle, with his tail dangling straight 
and tidy behind him. 

Well, when he came to the castle 
doors, the guardsmen lowered their 
pikes and would not let him in, how¬ 
ever well he looked, and whatever he 
might say. So he went around to the 
back of the house, and he spoke to 
the door in this wise: 

“Oh, back gate,” says he, “con¬ 
sider and be reasonable! What dif¬ 
ference can it make to you whether I 
am on one side of you or the other? 
I can wonder at the symmetry of your 
proportions from the inside of the 
wall as well as I can out here,” says 
Minkin Mouse; “ and it is well known 
that the inside of any door looks far 
the best to any man like me, who has 
traveled a long way and a dusty way. 


168 ADVENTURES OF MINKIN MOUSE 

with much on his mind and little on 
his stomach!” The door was fain to 
smile at such bald-faced wheedling, 
and through the smile Minkin Mouse 
slipped in to the courtyard, where the 
geese were pacing like a regiment in 
white jackets, and the pigs were asleep 
in the sunniest corner. 

But as for the mouse, he was using 
his eyes for one thing alone, and that 
was the pan of milk on the settle at 
the door of the kitchen. He was all 
of a mind to find out whether it would 
fit behind his belt or not, but in the 
middle and peak of his investigations, 
here was the cook with her arms 
akimbo. 

“And what do you there?” says 
she. 

“Don’t you see?” says Minkin 


ADVENTURES OF MINKIN MOUSE 169 

Mouse. “ I am that sort of trickster 
that lets never a trick go unconsidered, 
and I am making a design whereby I 
can be on all sides of this panful at 
once, and yet stand where I am all the 
time.” Now this was a country of 
wagers and tricks, as you have seen 
by the fox’s day at the fair; and the 
cook was not too exalted to be watch¬ 
ing a trick and laying a wager on it. 

“Well and good,” says she. “I lay 
wager that you cannot manage it. If 
you win, you shall dine well, and I 
will send you up to the King, who 
loves a famous trick; if I win, I shall 
hand you over to the cat, who would 
be pleased for once, with a mouse so 
large as you.” 

“Agreed,” says Minkin Mouse, and 
without more ado he lifted the pan of 


170 ADVENTURES OF MINKIN MOUSE 

milk and swallowed it down. Then 
he wipes his whiskers, and says he, 
“Where am I to dine?” 

Hei! What a din the cook set up, 
to be sure! She lifted the pan, she 
tapped it, she listened at the side of it, 
but there was not a drop left. 

“ You rascal!” says she. “You have 
done no more than drink every drop 
of the milk that I had set aside for to¬ 
morrow’s whey i ‘ Where shall I dine ? ’ 
say you! It’ll be rather ‘Where shall 
I be dined on?’ Here, puss!” 

“Now, now,” says Minkin Mouse, 
“did you make a wager or not? It 
seems to me that I heard myself say¬ 
ing, ‘I can be on all sides of this pan- 

I 

ful at once, and yet stand where I am 
all the time.’ Now where is the pan¬ 
ful?” 


ADVENTURES OF MINKIN MOUSE 171 

“It is reposing on the inside of 
you,” says the cook, full of grief. 

“You are right there,” says the 
mouse; “ and I am therefore surround¬ 
ing it on all sides and yet here I stand 
where I was. Come now, where am I 
to dine ? ” Well, the cook was obliged 
to admit the force of this logic, and 
she fed the mouse well enough to last 
him for a twelvemonth, but she had 
her own ideas about the fulfillment of 
the rest of the wager, and she searched 
through her head for words black 
enough to use when she should pre¬ 
sent the mouse to the King. 

But when the time came, and Min¬ 
kin Mouse told his story from begin¬ 
ning to end, the King laughed and 
laughed. 

“This is the one I have stood in 


172 ADVENTURES OF MINKIN MOUSE 


need of,” says he to the cook; “do 
you go back to your pots and pans, 
for you have no knowledge of the 
intricacies of diplomacy,” says the 
King. And when the cook was gone, 
in a great huff at having stood on the 
small end of the scales, the King 
beckoned to Minkin Mouse, and called 
him up to the throne. 

“ Harkee,” says the King, “ I have 
two quarrelsome councillors that do 
nothing but argue and debate from 
morning to night,” says he. “ Do you 
think of a trick to stop them, for they 
have made me deaf in one ear already, 
and I feel that the hearing of the other 
one is wavering, on account of their 
constant clack.” 

“ Nothing more simple,” says Min¬ 
kin Mouse; “ do but call a meeting 


ADVENTURES OF MINKIN MOUSE 173 

of the lords and the councillors, and 
there will be an end of it in short 
order.” So the King sent out six 
heralds and as many pages to carry 
the invitations, and before long the 
dukes and the earls and the marquises, 
and the privy councillors and the 
councillors-at-law came strolling in, 
and in the midst of them were the two 
who debated, wagging their fingers at 
each other and talking so fast that if 
their words had been so many useful 
breezes, they would have turned all 
the windmills in the kingdom. 

Down they all sat, and the King 
stood up to announce the subject for 
the day’s considerations. No sooner 
had the words left him than the two 
quarrelsome councillors sprang to their 
feet and began a frantic argument, that 


174 ADVENTURES OF MINKIN MOUSE 


was, after all, more words than ideas, 
and more to impress the beholders 
with their powers than to demonstrate 
their interest in the subject. 

The court sat and looked upon them 
with civility and decorum, although 
there was no man there who did not 
wish for a turn in the garden, or re¬ 
freshment of any sort whatever. But 
they were all nobles and therefore 
well-bred, and they had no choice but 
to watch the proceedings with a show 
of the liveliest excitement, while the 
two councillors talked and pleaded 
and wrangled and contradicted. Now 
Minkin Mouse sat well in front, with 
his hands folded over his waist, where 
the pan of milk and the cook’s dinner 
were slumbering together so peace¬ 
fully, and he kept his bright eyes 


. ADVENTURES OF MINKIN MOUSE 175 

fixed on the two quarrelsome council¬ 
lors. 

But after they had talked for half an 
hour, and seemed no nearer the end 
than they were at the beginning, he 
yawned very softly — ahh-hwhooo — 
and closed his eyes a little. And when 
they had talked for an hour, and their 
tongues were still nimble, he yawned 
again, but not softly—AHHHHH- 
HWHHHOOOO—and closed his 
eyes tight. 

All the lords looked at one another, 
and the councillor that was speaking 
fastest stopped for a moment and for¬ 
got a word. The other one caught 
him up, and presently they were at it 
as hotly as ever, but with this differ¬ 
ence,— that through their jabber and 
clack there ran a new quavering sound. 




176 ADVENTURES OF MINKIN MOUSE 


like a brook bubbling through pebbles. 
They stopped and glowered, and they 
did their best to shout and clamor as 
before, but still the little sound filled 
up the pauses and curled about their 
words. Now there is no orator that 
ever lived who can do his best in the 
face of a snore, however gentle; and 
there, well in front, sat Minkin Mouse, 
asleep and snoring before the eyes of 
all men, and no more impressed by 
the arguments of the debaters than the 
new moon up yonder. So the talking 
grew feebler and feebler, and at last 
the quarrelsome councillors sat down, 
very red in the face and neck, and the 
whole court forgot civility and deco¬ 
rum, and laughed mightily, for joy at 
their freedom from bondage. 

After dinner the King summoned 


ADVENTURES OF MINKIN MOUSE 177 

Minkin Mouse, and says he, “What 
will you have for your priceless ser¬ 
vices? Shall it be the Order of High¬ 
est Discernible Merit (that is a leather 
collar with a gilded spy-glass at the 
end of it)—or the Order of the Broth¬ 
erhood of Distinguished Assistants to 
the King (that is a copper chain with 
a silver medal at the end of it); or 
shall it be — ” 

“If your Majesty please,” says Min¬ 
kin Mouse, as humble as dust, but 
with an admirable firmness, “ I have 
never been used to be ordered about, 
and a baser reward will suit me just 
as well. If you should only give me 
gold until my hands are full, it would 
completely discharge your Majesty’s 
obligation ” 

Now the King infinitely preferred 


178 ADVENTURES OF MINKIN MOUSE: 


to part with the medals rather than 
with the gold, for he had the orders 
made in great quantities at very low 
rates, and kept them in chests in the 
attic for just such occasions as this,— 
and so he hemmed and hawed a bit; 
but when he looked at the mouse’s 
hands he concluded that he would not 
be losing much, after all, since they 
were not large enough to make a very 
wide hole in his revenue. So the 
King calls the Lord Chief Treasurer 
and gives him a monstrous key, to 
unlock the cellar where the gold was 
kept. 

Back comes the Treasurer with a 
bag the size of a good cream cheese. 
“That will never be enough,” says 
Minkin Mouse, and he sits down, 
with his hands held together between 



ADVENTURES OF MINKIN MOUSE 179 


his knees. The Treasurer poured out 
the guldens in the bag, and behold, 
they scarcely showed in the cup of the 
mouse’s two hands. Again he went, 



and again he came, with two good 
bags twice the size of the first one, 
and he poured out the guldens as 
before. Pshaw! They scarcely came 



























180 ADVENTURES OF MINKIN MOUSE 

to the middle fingers of the mouse’s 
two hands. The King and the Lord 
Chief Treasurer looked at each other 
and looked at the floor, but there was 
no gold lying about lost. 

So the Treasurer went to the cellars 
a third time, and came back with a bag 
that was larger than all the others put 
together, and when he opened the 
mouth of it, golden chains and brace¬ 
lets came tumbling out, and in short 
space the hands of Minkin Mouse 
were full and running over. 

“ There,” says the Mouse; “ that 
will do nobly,” says he; “you may 
keep the rest of it till another time,” 
and he got up mighty slow and care¬ 
ful, and put the jewels in his pockets. 
But at every step he took there was a 
rattle and a jingle, and that down by 


ADVENTURES OF MINKIN MOUSE 181 

his boots, where no sound like that 
ought to be. 

The King snatched him on one side, 
and the Lord Chief Treasurer on the 
other. True enough, what a cry they 
set up! 

“Cheat! Rascal! Felon of un¬ 
speakable qualities! You have got 
your boots full of it! Give back the 
gold! ” 

“Ah, come now,” says Minkin 
Mouse; “ why should I do that? You 
yourself spoke of my services as price¬ 
less, and I have no doubt you were 
right; as for me, I said that you might 
give me gold until my hands were full. 
Now it is not my fault that the little 
fingers on both hands are a trifle bent, 
so that there is a bit of a space where 
a thin coin can slip through! And to 


182 ADVENTURES OF^MINKIN MOUSE 

keep your pretty dollars from rolling 
about the floor, I held my hands over 
my boots, and there they fell in, snug 
and sound. You will admit that I 
stopped you honorably when my hands 
were finally filled,” savs Minkin 
Mouse. 

Well, the King scratched his head, 
and the Lord Chief Treasurer scratched 
his, but for all that, they could not see 
a way out of this dark alley, since, 
being noblemen and well-bred, they 
had not been brought up to use their 
wits. And so they were obliged to let 
Minkin Mouse depart from the front 
gate like a Prince of the Blood, be¬ 
cause he had a full third of the coun¬ 
try’s revenue rattling in his boots. 

Minkin Mouse went out from the 
King’s great town, and turned his face 


ADVENTURES OF MINKIN MOUSE 183 

to the east. It was twilight time, and 
he sat himself down by the roots of a 
barberry bush to reflect. 

“Now what am I to think?” says 
he. “Are these things on my feet 
really boots, that are made for folk to 
walk in ? Or are they purses, that are 
meant to carry gold alone ? ” And all 
the while he was turning the idea 
backward and forward, he was spread¬ 
ing his toes in the highway dust and 
thinking how good it was. And so at 
last he fastened the boots together by 
their flaring tops and slung them over 
his shoulder, and up he got and off he 
went. Some say that he went to the 
north and married a wife in Allemaine, 
and some say that he went to the south 
and hunted for the hartebeest in Africa, 
and some have said that he ruled with- 


184 ADVENTURES OF MINKIN MOUSE 


out trickery for many years in farthest 
Hindustan. For my part, I cannot 
say whether he did all of these things 
or none at all, for I lost sight of him 
in the twilight, there outside the King’s 
great town, with his fortune all made 
and hanging over his shoulder, and his 
tail dangling straight and tidy behind 
him. 



































186 


THE THREE POWERS 


The Gentling of the Giants 








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THE THREE POWERS 


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Dom Samson had a mighty fall, 

His giant sons also ; 

It was their much-enduring wives 
Who wrought them all their woe. 

For (tired of such domestic din) 

Whene’er a stranger came 

Inquiring for a giant’s gore. 

They helped him to the same. 

Considering which, it must be said 
That giants never should be wed. 

And are there now no giants more? 

Oh, yes, indeed, my dear; 

Their given name is now Police, 

But you should never fear. 

When you are robbed or killed or lost, 

A giant dressed in blue 

Will come to chase the bogies off 
And ask you how you do. 

I wonder how policemen’s wives 
Have made them lead such gentle lives! 





























THE THREE POWERS 


N the old days there 
was a King who was 
as mighty as salvation 
and as powerful as 
judgment, but he had 
come to that time of life when all his 
sons were grown up sufficiently to 
have their own way, and not old 
enough to have common sense. The 
six oldest were all gone off to seek 

adventure, some by sea and some by 

» 

land, and some by air and snow; as 
for the youngest, he sat still at home, 
with his toes in the fire, and chewed 
the end of a goose-quill, for he was 
a poet, or so most men thought. Now 
the King was proud of all of them, in 
their degree, but he could not see the 













190 


THE THREE POWERS 


makings of the next King in any of 
the family; he hankered and fretted 
after a ruler to follow him until the 
seventh Prince was at his wits’ end. 
He could not fix his mind on the sim¬ 
plest rimes, and at last he was reduced 
to wretchedness because he could not 
invent a suitable subject. 

So he collected his papers together 
and threw his quill in the corner, and 
says he, “ Father, I think I had better 
be going off like the rest of them,” 
and with that he put on his cap and 
made for the door. 

Hei, how the King did rant and 
fume! It was bad enough to lose the 
first six and have only the youngest at 
home, but to have none at all was 
more than half again as bad. He re¬ 
fused the seventh Prince a sword to 


THE THREE POWERS 191 

bear or a horse to ride, but that was 
where the youngest son had the best 
of the others. 

“Tut,” says he, “I have two legs to 
carry me and two eyes to guide me, 
and if any one should come along who 
can do more with his hands than I 
can, why perhaps it is as well that I 
should be his servant, since I am cer¬ 
tainly less useful to myself than to him, 
if I let a man beat me.” 

Well, at last the King saw reason 
and asked the Prince what he was 
going for, and how his letters should 
be addressed, in case any came to be 
forwarded. Oh, as to that, the Prince 
was going out in search of adventure 
that would prove suitable subject mat¬ 
ter for poetry. 

“And I hope,” says he, as modest 


192 


THE THREE POWERS 


as the south wind, “to be of some 
assistance by the way to ladies in dis¬ 
tress. But I am going so far and 
traveling so wide that everything can 
wait until I come home,” says he, and 
so he started off on foot, whistling like 
a popinjay, and happy as a duckling 
in the rain, — for he had high hopes 
of seeing St. Brandan’s Islands and 
Parthenope, Cathay and Peshawur, 
where, as every man knows, subjects 
for poetry are so common that they 
are used for cobblestones. But it is 
not every high hope that has fulfill¬ 
ment, as the man said when the ladder 
broke. 

i As the^King’s son went through the 
garden, he heard a voice saying, “ Help 
me out! Oh, help me out!” It was 
a voice weak and feeble, and it came 



THE THREE POWERS 193 

from nowhere at all, as far as the 
Prince could see. He looked high 
and he looked low, he looked down 
where the daisies blow, — and there he 
saw a brown and yellow bee, caught 
in the tangle of a spider’s web. 

“Ah there, bold buccaneer,” says 
he, “you are caught with the gold 
upon you this time! But even so, for 
the sake of your husbandry in the 
hives, I must help you out.” He 
broke the gray threads and released 
the bee, that spread its wings and flew 
to a hollyhock by the wall. 

“This is your first adventure in 
assisting ladies in distress,” says the 
bee, as if the Prince’s exploits were 
the talk of the garden. “Never call 
us honeymakers either farmers or 
buccaneers, for we are no more than 



194 


THE THREE POWERS 


honest market wives, who give as much 
as we get, in fair trade. Now for your 
kind service I give to you one of my 
powers, to be used but once in the 
course of your adventures; but which 
one it is I have not time to tell you, 
since I hear the Chief Marshall of the 
Bee Empire calling me home to con¬ 
sult about the Bee Queen’s wedding.” 

Well, that was not bad as an adven¬ 
ture before one had left the garden, 
certainly; but there was more to come, 

as the fox said when he stuck fast in 
escaping from the chicken house, and 
only his head and shoulders were out¬ 
side. Under his hand the King’s son 
felt an angry stirring, and when he 
lifted it, lo you, there was Dame 
Spider, whose web he had broken. 

“ How dare you, human,” says she; 


THE THREE POWERS 195 

“ you have broken the best network in 
the garden, and all for a fat dame with 
a market basket! It is a good thing 
for you she did not stab you in return,” 
says the spider, “for in spite of her 
pretty song, she carries a dagger in her 
petticoats.” 

“Ah, now,” says the Prince, “you 
are in distress, and all on my account; 
and I can tell that you are feminine by 
the wag of your tongue,” says he. 
“ How can I help you before I am on 
my way again?” 

“ Hold up my embroidery until I 
can join it together again,” says the 
spider, somewhat softer. “ I shall cer¬ 
tainly not be able to go fly-fishing until 
I have my nets spread out, and I have 
lost a good catch for breakfast already.” 

So the Prince . held up the silver 


196 


THE THREE POWERS 


threads on his finger, and the spider 
ran back and forth, weaving them to¬ 



gether again, chattering all the while 
about the folk of the garden; but 
through all her clack it seemed to the 
King’s son that he heard a tired voice 
whispering somewhere. 


































THE THREE POWERS 197 

% 

“ Do you hear some one speaking?” 
says he at last to the spider; ‘‘I think 
I hear a soft voice crying.” The 
spider listened a moment. 

“ Oh, that! ” says she; “ yes, indeed, 
— but it is only the earth calling again, 
for you can see it is a warm day. I 
could not repeat it to everybody and 
anybody,” says the spider, “ but I must 
tell you what is well known to the 
whole garden: earth has a terrible 
secret — she drinks. Now for your 
good sense in my affair,” says the 
spider, “ I can give you but one thing, 
and that is one of my powers, to be 
used but once. I should like to tell 
you how good a power it is, and how 
invaluable in adventures, but I have 
not time even to tell you which one it 
is, for I must get at my fishing.” 



198 


THE THREE POWERS 


And with that, off she went, and the 
King’s son was left standing in the 
sunshine, listening to the whispering 
voice that came from under his feet. 
After a bit, [he found that it said but 
one thing over and over: 

“Water—water—water—water! ” 

“Ah,” says he, “I should like to 
assist you, but for water I must go to 
the brook at the other end of the gar¬ 
den, and I have not the time, since I 
must be off to find ladies in distress 
and other suitable subject matter for 
poetry.” 

At that there came a little crack in 
the ground before his feet, and it 
seemed to the Prince like a faint 
smile. 

“ My dear,” said the tired voice of 
earth, “you are my son, the younger 




THE THREE POWERS 199 

brother of the roses and the mountains; 
of me you were made, and to me you 
will return when you are tired of ad¬ 
ventures and the other pretty trifles 
that occupy your mind up there where 
you walk upon my shoulders. You 
will rest more sweetly, and I think 
you will adventure more boldly, if you 
spend a little of your gracious youth 
in the service of your mother.” 

The King’s son ran off to the brook 
without a word more, and brought 
water to the parched earth of the gar¬ 
den ; and then he knelt down like a 
little boy and asked her for a blessing. 
All around him he felt the warm kind¬ 
ness of the earth, and smelling the rich 
fragrance that rose from it, he was 
minded of a sudden to lie down in her 
tenderness and rest himself for ever. 


200 


THE THREE POWERS 


But earth spoke to him cheerfully, and 
said: 

“My blessing is always with my 
children. Go out now and do well in 
what you plan to do; but even as your 
sisters did, so will I. You have now 
one of my manifold powers, to be used 
but once in your life — but what it is I 
may not tell you, since I must be rock¬ 
ing the acorns that fell in my lap yes¬ 
terday, and keeping them warm and 
safe.” 

And so at last the Prince opened the 
great gates and stepped out into the 
highway that ran along before the 
King’s garden. I should like to be able 
to tell you that he was met by a mon¬ 
strous condor or a golden dragon, and 
carried over seven seas and nine moun¬ 
tains until he came to the edge of the 


THE THREE POWERS 


201 


world where the pixie-folk dangle their 
heels of an evening, and talk about the 
immortality of the soul. But the fact 
was that the King’s son never got very 
far from his father’s front gate. 

Across the highway there rose three 
hills, and there was the King’s chief 
town, with lines and rows of little red 
roofs and silver spires all twinkling in 
the sun. It came to the Prince’s mind 
that he could make better time to the 
lands of his adventurous hope if he 
should pass through the town’s little 
streets, and so inquire his way. He 
stopped and knocked at the first 
wooden door, and there was a house¬ 
wife with a white cap on her hair and 
a besom in her hand. And did she 
know the way to those countries where 
he could find suitable subject matter 


202 


THE THREE POWERS 


for poetry? That was what the King’s 
son wanted to know. 

“Oh, dear, no,” says the housewife; 
“ I have enough to do finding my way 
about through the dust that collects 
on my own floor, these days.” He 
asked at the second house, and the 
third, and then he skipped two or 
three and asked again, but he received 
much the same answer. 

“ Now then,” says the Prince, “ I am 
wasting my time in this city, if I get 
neither direction nor adventure. I will 
perhaps do better to ask direct if there 
are any distressful ladies in the neigh¬ 
borhood.” And so he did. Knock, 
knock 1 Were there any ladies in dis¬ 
tress thereabouts? 

“Oh, my, yes!” says the housewife 
who answered the door, — “ myself, for 


THE THREE POWERS 


203 


instance. The children are crying, the 
bread is rising, the carrots need scrap¬ 
ing, and the floor needs sweeping. 
Come in,” says she. 

‘ By your leave,” says the King’s 
son, “ I do not mean quite that kind 
of distress. I am a poet, and I am in 
search of suitable subject matter.” 

“ By that definition,” says the house¬ 
wife, “what you want is not dis¬ 
tress, but romantical sentiment. Dis¬ 
tress is distress, in whatever degree, 
and as for your subject matter,” says 
she, “ it is a poor poet who cannot 
learn something from children and a 
hearth fire.” 

“ There is something in that,” says 
the Prince, “ as the rabbit said when 
she saw the serpent’s tail disappearing 
into her burrow. It may be that I am 


204 


THE THREE POWERS 


not delaying to bad effect, after all.” 
So in he went, and down he sat; he 
rocked the cradle with one foot and 
rode a lusty boy cockhorse on the 
other, and with his arms full of the 
small daughters of the house, he told 
such tales and sang such songs as he 
had never thought to have in him at 
all. And by the time they were all 
shoving each other for a soft place on 
his shoulder, and quarreling like sleepy 
birds on a branch that is too narrow, 
the housewife had made the bread and 
peeled the carrots and swept the floor, 
and sat herself down with a needle and 
a pile of ragged hosen to gossip for a 

bit. 

She told him of the streets in the 
Town on Three Hills, broad and 
crooked both, and of the trolls and 


THE THREE POWERS 


205 


nixies and giants and fairies that lived 
in the streets of that town just as they 
do in every other, though common 
report places them far away in the 
countries on the edge of midnight and 
the borders of morning. The Prince’s 
ears stood up, hearing all this, like the 
ears of a fox when he hears the hunt¬ 
ing horns over the valleys at daybreak, 
but most particularly he attended the 
tales of the giant Bradaban, whose 
house lay on the other side of the third 
hill of the town. 

“And has he slain his thousands?” 
says the King’s son. 

“Without doubt,” says the house¬ 
wife ; “ and it is possible too that you 
would find there sweet ladies in dis¬ 
tress of the more romantic order, for I 
have never heard of giants yet,” says 


206 


THE THREE POWERS 


she, “that they did not carry off ladies 
in the most abominable fashion.” 

“Then I must be going,” says the 
Prince; “and it strikes me,” says he, 
“that I am packing my ears this day 
with very fit subject matter for poetry, 
and that without travel or suffering.” 

“ I think you will come to one of 
those before long,” says the house¬ 
wife, “ for there is no man living that 
does not suffer in his time. But my 
thanks to you for your kind service,” 
says she, “ and this wish, which is all I 
have to give you, — that after all you 
may bring home again the secret of 
joy. That is the only thing that makes 
poets, in the end.” 

So at sundown the King’s son set 
off for the third hill of the town, with 
a bit of the new-baked bread in his 



THE THREE POWERS 


207 


pocket. As he went, the candles were 
lighted in the houses of good citizens, 
and now and then he heard the scuf¬ 
fling of the Little People among the 
cobbles and along dusky alleys, but 
his mind was set on the house of Bra- 
daban, and he neither halted nor hesi¬ 
tated until he came to the other side 
of the third hill, and the dark house 
stood in front of him. The King’s 
son looked for the horn that giants 
keep at their gate, so that heroes may 
blow upon it to announce their arrival; 
but there was no more than a knocker 
on the outer door, such as any gentle¬ 
man might have. For all that, the 
Prince was standing within earshot of 
tears and tribulation. Listen! This 
was the way of it: 

He lifted the knocker with both 


208 


THE THREE POWERS 


arms and all his strength, and it fell 
against the frame with a crash that 
made the ground waver under him. 
Presently he heard footsteps behind 
the door, but they were light and 
little, so that the King’s son thought 
that perhaps he had made a mistake, 
after all. Bolts rattled and hinges 
cried, and the door swung open on 
such a blackness as you might expect 
to find in the last layer of the Pit Eter¬ 
nal; but in the midst of it, with a 
hand on the latch, stood a lassie so 
lovely that her like cannot be pictured 
by me nor imagined by you. It is 
enough to say that her yellow hair was 
like dawn and her grave eyes like 
twilight, and her beauty so like to 
flowers that the Prince felt himself 
at home in the garden again with the 


THE THREE POWERS 209 

roses and the lilies on either side of 
him. 

And were there any ladies in distress 
thereabouts? That was what the 
King’s son wanted to know. The 
lassie said no words but these: “Are 
you here at last!” says she, and with 
that she went to the floor and laid her 
head against his knees, and the tremor 
of her weeping crept up to the Prince’s 
heart and held it fast. 

Now out in the back of the house 
there rose the most tremendous roar¬ 
ing, and the lassie fled away at the 
sound of it. Here came the giant 
stamping through the hall, as big as 
seven men on horseback, and waving 
his club at the Prince. His ears hung 
down in fringes from the battles he 
had been in, and his face was blue and 


210 THE THREE POWERS 

purple with the welts of old sword- 
cuts. His nostrils ran up and down 
instead of across his face, the better to 
smell Christian blood; of his eyes one 
was white and one was red; his hair 
was blue and brown like steel, and so 
coarse that it rattled as he walked. 

I cannot deny that the heart of the 
King’s son stood still when he saw 
Bradaban, but he thought of the weep¬ 
ing lassie, and he stood his ground. 
He had no time to make his will or 
commend his soul, and he certainly 
had no need to ask about adventure,— 
for adventure was upon him with a 
crash of such blows from the giant 
that he had his whole mind set on his 
life’s defence and no more. For the 
whole of the night the King’s son 
stood in the hallway, fighting with his 



THE THREE POWERS 211 

bare fists and expecting every moment 
to be his latest and worst, for the giant 
laid on his strokes with the fury of 
God’s lost and disowned. His club 
was the weight of two men, and every 
knot of it was studded with nails; 
and it fell on the Prince’s shoulders 
twice to every tick of the clock. 
There was blood in the hair of the 
King’s son, and blood running into 
his eyes; his shirt was in ribbons, but 
his back was so stabbed and torn that 
you could not tell the difference be¬ 
tween the two, and his fists were so 
battered from striking on the armor of 
Bradaban that it seemed as if he was 
fighting with the stumps of his two 
arms. 

But life still stood up in him, and 
when] the dawn came, and there was 


212 


THE THREE POWERS 


a little gray light in the hall, the giant 
put down his club with a sigh, and 
says he, “I have never seen the like of 
you. You are a slight creature, like 
the rest of men, but I have never seen 
one live after the third hour of such 
beating as this. You have earth’s 
power of endurance,” says Bradaban. 

‘‘Come in to breakfast.” 

/ 

The King’s son rocked on his feet 
from the weariness of that night, but 
he thought that the giant was right in 
one thing; and he would not follow in 
search of hot water and liniment until 
he had got down upon his hands and 
knees to say his thanks to Mother 
Earth for the power of hers that had 
been with him in the time of necessity. 

Well, I doubt that you will credit 
me, as the serpent said to the hen 


THE THREE POWERS 213 

when he offered to be nursemaid to the 
chicks; but after all this the giant was 
as peaceful as slumber and as smooth 
as oil. He and the King’s son sat at 
breakfast together, and the yellow¬ 
haired lass waited upon them with her 
eyelashes cast down upon her pale 
cheeks, and her hands shaking. When 
she was gone, and the giant had wiped 
his hands upon his hair, the King’s son 
crossed his knees and leaned his elbow 
on the table, and says he, “What is 
the name of your daughter?” 

“My daughter!” says Bradaban, 
blushing like hot coals; “I have no 
daughter. I am a bachelor. The lass 
you see about here is a fine bit of a 
thing that I picked up in the kingdom 
next beyond this one. She has a re¬ 
spectable fortune and the highest 


214 THE THREE POWERS 

social connections; in fact, she is a 
Princess, and at my age one thinks of 
these things first. She suits my fancy 
in every manner possible, and yet I 
have been three years making up my 
mind to marry her ” 

“ Indeed,” says the King’s son, with¬ 
out showing the state of his mind; 
“and why this hesitation?” 

“Uncouth as I appear,” says the 
giant “ I am a person of considerable 
erudition, and I have read much in 
the history of the giant race. There 
is no authority that I can find for the 
long life of married giants; not one of 
my relatives has managed to survive 
the machinations of resentful female 
partners. There is something in the 
minds of women,” says the giant with 
brooding sadness, “which renders 






































































216 THE THREE POWERS 

them unfit to appreciate the attractions 
of our kind.” 

“Ah, yes,” says the Prince, “very 
unfortunate, as the man said when he 
fell over the precipice. It must be 
very trying,” says he, “ to have such a 
one about the house all day.” 

“As to that,” says Bradaban, “no. 
I bring her out to wash up the dishes 
and make the beds ready, but in the 
mid part of the day, when I indulge 
my weakness for a little doze, I take 
care to put her in the Wives’ Tower, 
— a little device of my ancestors. I 
have no scruple in showing it to you,” 
says the giant, “ since it has no stairs 
and no doors or windows, and it can¬ 
not be reached from the rest of 
the house. I simply take her by the 
shoulders and lift her in or out. The 



THE THREE POWERS 


217 


roof goes on only when it’s rainy 
weather.” 

Well, well, when the Prince heard 
all of this, you can imagine the state 
he was in. He thought of the three 
years that he had been at home chew¬ 
ing a goose quill while this business 
had been going on every day, and of 
the time he had spent in considering 
foreign parts, and his heart was bitter 
inside of him. He went straight out 
to the tower, with Bradaban grinning 
after him, and looked at it and studied 
it, but all to no purpose, for the sides 
were as smooth as glass, and there was 
no way up but to climb. For three 
days the King’s son talked and smiled, 
and tried to set the giant asleep before 
he should remember to put the Prin¬ 
cess up in the tower; the Princess 


218 


THE THREE POWERS 


herself was stirred by his courage and 
his hope, and hid herself in out-of-the- 
way places so that the giant should not 
find her. But still Bradaban shook 
the ribbons of his ears at them, and 
smiled with his red and white eyes; and 
every day the Princess was snatched 
into the giant’s fist and set aloft in the 
doorless Tower of the Wives. 

On the third day the King’s son 
stood at the foot of the tower while 
the giant dozed inside the house, and 
he was a frantic man. He set his 
hands on the glossy surface of the 
wall, and tried to find a foothold in 
more ways than I can tell you, but all 
without any more success than a hen 
has fur. He could not call to the 
Princess to cast a rope down from the 
tower, because the walls were too high 


THE THREE POWERS 219 

for even his voice to scale them. But 
the man who sits down and says “I 
cannot” will never reach the next 
town, though it be but a mile away. 

“ If there be no other way,” says the 
Prince, with his teeth set together, 
“I think I will crawl up yonder.” 
Now he knew well enough that men 
do not crawl upon walls, but after all 
there are a many things men may do 
that no man has done before them, 
and the King’s son was all of a mind 
to reach the top of the tower, whether 
he went by the ordinary means of 
mankind or no. He laid his body flat 
to the wall and stretched his arms 
against it, and behold, in the space of 
a breath he felt himself pressing up¬ 
wards, light and steady as a feather in 
the thin hands of the wind. 


220 THE THREE POWERS 

He crawled up until he could see 
the second hill of the town, and the 
first one; and then the spires on the 
hillsides, and the smoky red roofs and 
the narrow long streets in the valleys 
between them; he crawled up until he 
dared look down no more, and saw 
nothing but the air blowing over him, 
but he did not stop or falter till he felt 
his hands on the stones of the tower 
railing, and the hands of the Prin¬ 
cess upon his, helping him over the 
ledge. 

“It’s a bold man> you are,” says the 
Princess, with her eyes shining, “ and 
it is the spider’s power you have, to 
come up to me like this.” Well, the 
King’s son saw the truth of that with¬ 
out winking, and he blew a kiss to the 
spider, with his thanks wrapped up in 


THE THREE POWERS 221 

it, before ever he gave one to the 
Princess. 

After their first joy had a little 
abated, they sat down side by side and 
spoke of how they were to go from 
that place, for there was after all neither 
rope, nor cloth to make it; and there 
was very little time for considering, for 
they had no more than begun when 
they heard a sound like the great wash 
of waves in a cave mouth at the ocean 
side, and they knew that the giant was 
awaking with a yawn. 

“ Either this place sees the last of 
us,” says the Prince, very cheerful, “or 
we must see the last of it, and I think 
there is but one way to be going. I 
have not told you before this time, but 
when I started upon my journey, I was 
given three powers,—one by the earth, 


/ 


222 


THE THREE POWERS 


one by the spider, and one by the bee, 
to be used once and no more. What 
powers they were I was not told,” says 
he, “ but I know that I endured the 
giant’s buffets by the power of the 
earth, and I came up to you by one 
of the spider’s powers. Now I cannot 
be sure what power the bee gave me,” 
says the King’s son, taking the Prin¬ 
cess’s hands in his, “ but this is a very 
high wall, and we have neither rope 
nor ladder. I think we must remem¬ 
ber how the bees fly home at sunset,” 
says he, “and step from the tower 
into the avenues of air, even as they 
do.” 

Just then out comes Bradaban from 
the house, rubbing his eyes, to take 
the Princess down and set her at the 
supper tasks. When he saw the King’s 


THE THREE POWERS 223 

son standing on the parapet, he rubbed 
his eyes again, and then, without a 
sound, in a curious and frightful still¬ 
ness, he strode out from the house, 
with his white and red eyes upon them, 
and foam streaking down his jaws, 
and his great arms stretched to snatch 
them down. 

The King’s son looked at the Prin¬ 
cess. “Do you trust me?” says he. 
Now, even at that moment, the Prin¬ 
cess was a woman of tact and con¬ 
sideration. 

“I do,” says she, without a quiver; 
whereas she was thinking only, “It 
matters very little, — if he can fly, we 
are saved; and if he can not, better 
death with him than here.” But of 
this she said nothing, knowing the 
nature of men: that they would rather 


224 THE THREE POWERS 

be followed for what they can do, than 
be loved for what they are. 

The King’s son drew her into his 



arm and stepped from the tower’s 
edge,—and in a moment they had 
floated away, and left the giant be¬ 
hind them, and behind them too the 











































THE THREE POWERS 225 

third hill, and the second hill, the first 
hill, with all the little smoking roofs 
and all the silver spires. They drifted 
over the highway and over the castle 
wall, and when the bee came flying in 
at evening with her sisters, there was 
the Prince to thank her, walking up 
the path in the garden, hand in hand 
with the Princess. And so they came 
at last to the door where the King 
stood, holding his crown over his eyes 
and squinting into the sunset. 

“ Well, well,” says he, “ and did you 
find any suitable material for poetry? ” 

“Why, as for that,” says the Prince, 
“I have brought home my secret of 
joy, which is the only thing that makes 
poets, and here she is,” says he; “and 
I think, Father, that I am willing to 
rule when you will have me to,—for 


226 


THE THREE POWERS 


with one thing and another, I have 
found matter enough in the town over 
the way there to keep me busy for my 
life days.” 

“ That’s good,” says the King, 
handing the crown to him, “ for I have 
found it so myself, and now that you 
have a wife to help you, I shall give 
you the kingdom entire, and begin to 
write down the poetry that the town 
has been telling me these fourscore 
years,” says he. 

And so the King’s son and the Prin¬ 
cess were married; and where most 
brides have ten waiting maids, she had 
ten times as many, because she had 
served so long. But I have heard folk 
say that she sent them all on holidays 
every day, to sit on the grass and tell 
stories to one another, while she 


THE THREE POWERS 


227 


brushed her own hair, and fastened her 
gowns alone, because she knew how it 
was to be at somebody’s beck and call. 

And as to the giant? Well, the six 
elder brothers came home for the 

wedding, and when they heard of the 

> 

giant’s doings, they put on fresh armor 
and sharpened their swords, and clat¬ 
tered through the Town on the Three 
Hills, to get the head of Bradaban as a 
wedding gift for the bride. But when 
they came back they brought nothing 
but news, and it was this,—that Bra¬ 
daban had put on the cassock and cowl 

/ 

and gone into a monastery to renounce 
the society of ladies forever. 

And this is the end of him, and of 
this story, and of this book; God give 
you a sweet good-night, and happi¬ 
ness thereafter. 









“This book is a gem for a boy's or a girl's collectionl '— 
Philadelphia North American. 


SEVEN PEAS IN THE POD 


By MARGERY BAILEY 

With illustrations by Alice Bolam Preston. 
Crown 8vo. Cloth. 201 pages. 


“The charm of Irish folk tales pervades * Seven Peas in the 
Pod’, by Margery Bailey. ... It is a delight to find new tales 
so full of real whimsy and deep, deep magic and an unmistak¬ 
able intimacy with brownies, nixies and other fairy folk. . . . 
‘ Seven Peas in the Pod ’ is just the sort of book to stimulate the 
young child’s imagination, and its happy arrangement for a story 
a day will make it a welcome acquisition to the home reading 
circle that embraces the little people.” — Philadelphia Press . 

- “ It is the sort of book a 5-year-old will listen to happily and 
a 50-year-old read aloud with pleasure.”— Chicago Post. 

“ These stories are original and clever, each different from the 
other, and sure to delight boys and girls from 7 to 14 years.” — 
Boston Globe. 

“ Another excellent book of fairy tales is * Seven Peas in the 
Pod,’ by Margery Bailey, with charmingly decorative illustra¬ 
tions by Alice B. Preston. It is a beautifully printed and pre¬ 
pared little book of whimsical and fanciful tales, told in a 
quaintly humorous style.” — Bosto?t Herald. 


LITTLE, BROWN & CO., Publishers 
34 Beacon Street, Boston 














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